It was the cold, silent,
mystic, white world of northern winter.
At one moment the fort door flings wide with a rush of frost like smoke
clouds, and in stamps Godefroy, shaking snow off with boisterous noise
and vowing by the saints that the drifts are as high as the St. Pierre's
deck. M. Groseillers orders the rascal to shut the door; but bare has
the latch clicked when young Jean whisks in, tossing snow from cap and
gauntlets like a clipper shaking a reef to the spray, and declares that
the snow is already level with the fort walls.
"Eh, nephew," exclaims Radisson sharply, "how are the cannon?"
Ben Gillam, who has lugged himself from bed to the hearth for the first
time since his freezing, blurts out a taunting laugh. We had done better
to build on the sheltered side of an island, he informs us.
"Now, the shivers take me!" cries Ben, "but where a deuce are all your
land forces and marines and jack-tars and forty thousand officers?"
He cast a scornful look down our long, low-roofed barracks, counting the
men gathered round the hearth and laughing as he counted. M. Radisson
affected not to hear, telling Jean to hoist the cannon and puncture
embrasures high to the bastion-roofs like Italian towers.
"Monsieur Radisson," impudently mouths Ben, who had taken more rum for
his health than was good for his head, "I asked you to inform me where
your land forces are?"
"Outside the fort constructing a breastwork of snow.
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