If Bridgar had realized Radisson’s plight, the Frenchman would have been clapped under hatches in a twinkle, but he was allowed to leave _The Prince Rupert_. Bridgar beached his ships on the flats and prepared to build winter quarters. Ten days later, Radisson dropped in again, “to drink health,” as he suavely explained, introducing common sailors as officers and firing off muskets to each cup quaffed, to learn whether the Company kept soldiers “on guard in case of a surprise.” Governor Bridgar was too far gone in liquor to notice the trick, but Captain Gillam rushed up the decks of _The Prince Rupert_ with orders for the French to begone. Gillam and Radisson had been enemies from the first. Gillam was suspicious. Therefore, it behooved Radisson to play deeper. The next time he came to the ship he was accompanied by the Captain’s son, Ben, the poacher, dressed as a bushranger. There was reason enough now for the old captain to keep his crew from going farther up the river. If Ben Gillam were discovered in illicit trade, it meant ruin to both father and son. When some of his crew remarked the resemblance of the supposed bushranger to the absent son, Captain Gillam went cold with fright. Falsity, intrigue, danger, were in the very air. It lacked but the spark to cause the explosion; and chance supplied the spark. Two of the Company men ranging for game came on young Gillam’s ship. They dashed back breathless to Governor Bridgar with word that there was a strange fort only a few miles away. Bridgar thought this must be the French fort, and Captain Gillam had not courage to undeceive him. Scouts were sent scurrying. Those scouts never returned. They had been benighted in a howling blizzard and as chance would have it, were rescued by Radisson’s spies. While he waited for their return, worse disaster befell Bridgar. Storm and ice set the tide driving in Nelson River like a whirlpool. _The Prince Rupert_ was jammed, ripped, crushed like an eggshell and sunk with loss of all provisions and fourteen men, including old Captain Gillam. Mike Grimmington, the mate, escaped. Governor Bridgar was left destitute and naked to the enemy without either food or ammunition for the remainder of his crew to face the winter. The wretched man seems to have saved nothing from the wreck but the liquor, and in this he at once proceeded to drown despair. It was Radisson who came to his rescue. Nothing more was to be feared from Bridgar. Therefore, the Frenchman sent food to the servants of his former friends. Without his aid, the entire Hudson’s Bay crew would have perished.