ground of Duluth, the forest ranger. The furs of these
regions were being drained by the English of Hudson Bay.

Talon determined to put a stop to this, and had advised Frontenac
accordingly. August, 1671, Governor Frontenac dispatched the English
Jesuit--Father Albanel--with French guides and Indian voyageurs to set
up French arms on Hudson Bay and to bear letters to Radisson and
Groseillers. The journey was terrific. I have told the story
elsewhere. Autumn found the voyageurs beyond the forested shores of
the Saguenay and Lake St. John, ascending a current full of boiling
cascades towards Lake Mistassini. Then the frost-painted woods became
naked as antlers, with wintry winds setting the dead boughs crashing;
and the ice, thin as mica, forming at the edges of the streams, had
presently thickened too hard for the voyageurs to break with their
paddles. Albanel and his comrades wintered in the Montaignais' lodges,
which were banked so heavily with snow that scarcely a breath of pure
air could penetrate the {144} stench. By day the priest wandered from
lodge to lodge, preaching the gospel. At night he was to be found afar
in the snow-padded solitudes of the forest engaged in prayer. At last,
in the spring of 1672, thaw set the ice loose and the torrents rushing.
Downstream on June 10 launched Albanel, running many a wild-rushing
rapid, taking the leap with the torrential waters over the lesser
cataracts, and avoiding the larger falls by long detours over rocks
slippery as ice, through swamps to a man's armpits. The hinterland of
Hudson Bay, with its swamps and rough portages and dank forests of
unbroken windfall, was then and is to-day the hardest canoe trip in
North America; but towards the end of June the French canoes glided out
on the arm of the sea called James Bay, hoisted the French flag, and in
solemn council with the Indians presented gifts to induce them to come
down the Saguenay to Quebec. Fort Rupert, the Hudson's Bay Company's
post, consisted of two barrack-like log structures. When Albanel came
to the houses he found not a soul, only boxes of provisions and one
lonely dog.

A few weeks previously the men of the English company had gone on up
the west coast of Hudson Bay, prospecting for the site of a new
settlement. Before Albanel had come at all, there was friction among
the English. Radisson and Groseillers were Catholics and French, and
they were supervisors of the entire trade. Bayly, t