We thought we had taken possession of the land.
No, no, 'twas the land had taken possession of us, as the New World
ever does, fusing ancient hates and rearing a new race, of which--I
wot--no prophet may dare too much!
"He who twiddles his thumbs may gnaw his gums," M. Radisson was wont to
say; and I assure you there was no twiddling of thumbs that morning.
Bare had M. Radisson finished prayers, when he gave sharp command for
Groseillers, his brother-in-law, to look to the building of the
Habitation--as the French called their forts--while he himself would go
up-stream to seek the Indians for trade. Jean and Godefroy and I were
sent to the ship for a birch canoe, which M. Radisson had brought from
Quebec.
Our leader took the bow; Godefroy, the stern; Jean and I, the middle.
A poise of the steel-shod steering pole, we grasped our paddles, a
downward dip, quick followed by Godefroy at the stern, and out shot the
canoe, swift, light, lithe, alert, like a racer to the bit, with a
gurgling of waters below the gunwales, the keel athrob to the swirl of
a turbulent current and a trail of eddies dimpling away on each side.
A sharp breeze sprang up abeam, and M. Radisson ordered a blanket sail
hoisted on the steersman's fishing-pole. But if you think that he
permitted idle paddles because a wind would do the work, you know not
the ways of the great explorer.
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