A pretty cheat for the Company!"
The end of it was, M. Radisson invited me to join his ships. "A
beaver-skin for a needle, Ramsay! Twenty otter for an awl! Wealth for
a merchant prince," he urged.
But no sooner had I grasped at this easy way out of difficulty than the
Frenchman interrupts: "Hold back, man! Do you know the risk?"
"No--nor care one rush!"
"Governor Frontenac demands half of the furs for a license to trade,
but M. de la Barre, who comes to take his place, is a friend of La
Chesnaye's, and La Chesnaye owns our ships----"
"And you go without a license?"
"And the galleys for life----"
"If you're caught," said I.
"Pardieu!" he laughed, "yes--if we're caught!"
"I'd as lief go to the galleys for fur-trading as the scaffold for
witchcraft," said I.
With that our bargain was sealed.
PART II
Now comes that part of a life which deals with what you will say no one
man could do, yet the things were done; with wonders stranger than
witchcraft, yet were true. But because you have never lived a
sword-length from city pavement, nor seen one man holding his own
against a thousand enemies, I pray you deny not these things.
Each life is a shut-in valley, says the jongliere; but Manitou, who
strides from peak to peak, knows there is more than one valley, which
had been a maxim among the jonglieres long before one Danish gentleman
assured another there were more things in heaven and earth than
philosophy dreamed.
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