Groseilliers' anticipations were realized; but not without almost incredible activity on his part. He spent the summer and autumn, and part of the ensuing winter, in making excursions into the interior. He made treaties with the Nodwayes, the Kilistineaux, the Ottawas, and other detachments of the Algonquin race. Solemn conclaves were held, in which the bushranger dwelt--with that rude eloquence of which he was master, and which both he and Radisson had borrowed from the Indians--on the superior advantages of trade with the English. Nor did his zeal here pause; knowing the Indian character as he did, he concocted stories about the English King and Prince Rupert; many a confiding savage that year enriched his pale-face vocabulary by adding to it "Charles" and "Rupert," epithets which denoted that transcendent twain to whom the French bushranger had transferred his labours and his allegiance. The winter of 1668-69 dragged its slow length along, and in due course the ground thawed and the snow disappeared. No sooner had the spring really arrived than strange natives began to make their appearance, evincing a grotesque eagerness to strike bargains with the whites for the pelts which they brought from the bleak fastnesses. By June it was thought fit that Captain Gillam should return with the _Nonsuch_, leaving Groseilliers and others at the fort. Gillam accordingly sailed away with such cargo as they had been able to muster, to report to the Prince and his company of merchants the excellent prospects afforded by the post on Rupert's River, provided only the Indians could be made aware of its existence, and the French trade intercepted. [Illustration: THE ORIGINAL CHARTER OF THE GREAT COMPANY. (_From a Photograph._)] [Sidenote: Groseilliers' presence of mind.] Chouart des Groseilliers in all his transactions with the natives exhibited great hardihood of speech and action; and few indeed were the occasions which caught him unawares. It happened more than once, for instance, that some of the wandering Algonquins or Hurons recognized in this smooth-tongued leader of the English fort the same French trader they had known at Montreal, and the French posts on the western lakes, and marvelled much that he who had then been loudly crying "up King Lewis and the Fleur-de-lis," should now be found surrounded by pale-faces of a different speech, known to be the allies of the terrible Iroquois. Groseilliers met their exclamations with a smile; he represented himself as profoundly dissatisfied with the manner in which the French traders treated his friends the Indians, causing them to travel so far and brave such perils to bring their furs, and giving them so little in return. "Tell all your friends to come hither," he cried, "and King Charles will give you double what King Lewis gives."