Beaching their canoe, the three white men marched jauntily up to the governor. The shaggy eyes of the bluff old governor took in the fact that the newcomers were French—Frenchmen dressed as bush-lopers, but with the manners of gentlemen, introducing themselves with the debonair gayety of their race, Monsieur Péré, Monsieur Coultier de Comporté and a third, whose name is lost to the records. Old Governor Sargeant scratched his burly beard. England and France were at peace, very much at peace when France had sent Radisson back; and he must treat the visitors with courtesy; but what were gentlemen doing dressed as bush-rovers? Hunting—taking their pleasure where they found it—knights of the wildwoods—says my good friend, Jan Péré, doffing his fur capote with a bow. Governor Sargeant hails good friend Péré into the fort, to a table loaded with game and good wine and the hospitality of white men lonely for companionship as a sail at sea. The wine passes freely and stories pass freely, stories of the hunt and the voyage and of Monsieur Radisson and his friends, whom the Governor expects back this year—soon, very soon, any day now the ships may come. But at base, every Hudson’s Bay Company man is a trader. Governor Sargeant evincing no zealous desire to extend his hospitality longer, Monsieur Péré tactfully evinces no desire to stay. The gay adventurers aver they are going to coast along the shore—that alkali shore between the main coast of cedar swamps and the outer reef of bowlders—where good sport among feathered game is to be expected. Once they are out of sight from Albany, the three Frenchmen rest on their paddles and confer. They had not counted on leaving _quite_ so soon. Still gay as schoolboys on an escapade, that night as they sleep on shore under the stars, they take good care to leave their canoe so that the high tide carries it out to sea. What is to be done now—a thousand miles by swamp from the nearest French fort? Presto—go back to the English fort, of course; and back they trudge to Albany with their specious farce of misadventure.