ason was past, but John found wild cherries, small, deep
red, in heavy bunches. When he tried to eat them, however, they were so
sour that he nearly choked. Cautiously he tasted the big blue
whortleberries that grew on high bushes; near water, and found them
delicious. He had been eating them by the handful for some time when he
became aware that there was a feaster on the other side of the thicket.
Receiving no reply to his challenge he went to investigate and saw a
brown bear standing on his hind legs and raking the berries off the
twigs with both forepaws, into his mouth. At sight of John he dropped on
all fours and cantered off.

Leaving the bay they cruised along the coast past Cape Cod, and then
steered southwest for the fortieth parallel. Wind and rain came on in
the middle of August, and they were blown toward an inlet which Hudson
decided to be the James. Not knowing how the English governor of
Jamestown might regard an intrusion by a Dutch ship, he turned north
again, and on the twenty-eighth of August entered a large bay and took
soundings. More than once the _Half Moon_, light as she rode, grounded
on sand-banks, and Hudson shook his head in rueful doubt.

"D' you think the straits are here, Dad?" asked John when he had a
chance to speak with his father alone.

"Hardly. This is fresh water. It's the mouth of a river."[3]

"Yes, but might there be an isthmus--or the like?"

"A big river with as strong a current as this would not rise on a
narrow, level strip of land, son. It's bringing down tons of sand to
make these banks we run into. There's a great wide country inland
there."

The chanteys of the sailors were heard at daybreak in the lonely sea, as
the _Half Moon_ went on her way northward. On September 3 the little
ship edged into another and bigger bay to the north. Whether it was a
bay or a lake Hudson was at first rather doubtful. The shores were
inhabited, for little plumes of smoke arose everywhere, and soon from
all sides log canoes came paddling toward the ship. These Indians were
evidently not unused to trading, for they brought green tobacco, hemp,
corn and furs to sell, and some of them knew a few words of French. By
this, and by signs, they gave Hudson to understand that three rivers, or
inlets, came into this island-encircled sea, the largest being toward
the north. Hudson determined to follow this north river and see where it
led.

As he sailed cautiously into the channel, taking soun