In August 1660 the two adventurers found their way back to Montreal after over a year's absence. They were accompanied by 300 Indians and 60 canoes, laden with furs, out of which they made a handsome profit. But they had to reckon with the jealous fur-trading proprietors of Quebec, who sought to restrict them from adventuring into any new fields, and so many obstacles did the pair meet with, that in order to carry out their scheme and establish trading posts on Hudson's Bay they gave up their overland scheme and decided to throw in their lot with the English. They crossed over the ocean and had an interview with King Charles's cousin, the gallant {105} Prince Rupert, and the result was all their hearts could wish for. Money for the enterprise was found, and an English association founded under charter from the King, which took the title of the Merchants and Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay, but better known to us as the Hudson's Bay Company. On a June morning 1668 the _Nonsuch_, a ketch of only fifty tons' burden, left the Thames for Hudson's Bay. At the end of September it passed safely through Hudson's Straits, and all hands were ordered ashore in Rupert's River to begin the construction of a fort and dwellings, called after King Charles. It was made of logs, in the fashion of those made by the Jesuits and traders in Canada. As some protection from sudden attack it was enclosed by a stockade. This, at Rupert's River, was the first of the forts and stations of the Hudson's Bay Company. After a time other forts and "factories," as they were called, began to dot the shores of the bay. Radisson and Groseilliers did not continue very constant in their allegiance; sometimes they were English, sometimes they were French. They were rough-and-ready adventurers both; and it all depended whose purse was largest to command their services. Radisson, however, ended his days in the receipt of a pension from the Hudson's Bay Company. Naturally, the French were not at all pleased at this enterprise which the English had set on foot, and soon began to take measures to get the {106} fur trade of the most distant parts into their own hands. Governor Courcelle despatched an explorer, a brave fellow named Nicholas Perrot, to summon deputies from the far western tribes to a conference, and take them all under the protection of King Louis. It was while on this expedition that Perrot heard from the Indians of a mighty river flowing southwards, which they spoke of as the Mississippi, or Father of Waters. The rumour caused great interest in Canada. It was not long, as we shall see, before another expedition started from Quebec to ascertain what truth lay in the story. But that was in Frontenac's time.