As the evening wore on, a manoeuvre suggested itself to Radisson. He resolved to bring father and son together. No sooner had he formed this amiable resolve than he revealed to Benjamin Gillam the proximity of the _Prince Rupert_ and her commander, and described the means by which an encounter might be effected without eliciting the suspicions of Governor Bridgar or any of the Company's servants. It consisted briefly in young Benjamin's disguising himself as a Frenchman and a bushranger. The scheme met with the young man's hearty approbation and the details were settled as Radisson had designed. On the following day the party set out through the snow. Arriving at the point of land opposite to which the Company's ship lay, Radisson posted two of his best men in the woods on the path which led to the factory. He instructed them to allow the Governor to pass should he come that way, but that if he returned from the ship unaccompanied or prior to their own departure they were to seize and overpower him on the spot. With such precautions as these, Radisson felt himself safe and went on board the _Prince Rupert_ accompanied by Gillam. He introduced his two companions into the captain's room without any notice on the part of Gillam the elder, and the mate and another man he had with him. Leaning across the table, upon which was deposited a bulky bottle of rum, Radisson whispered to the honest captain that he had a secret of the highest importance to communicate if he would but dismiss the others. Gillam readily sent away the mate, but would not dismiss his second attendant until Radisson, again in a whisper, informed him that the black-bearded man in the strange head-gear was his son. [Sidenote: Meeting of father and son.] After communicating this intelligence the pair had their own way. The next few moments were devoted to embraces and to an interchange of news, for Captain Gillam and Benjamin had not met for two years. The sire could not refrain from imparting to his son that he was running a great risk; he declared it would be ruinous to him if it got to the Governor's ears that there was any collusion between them. Radisson again professed his friendship, but added that in his opinion neither of the parties had any right to be where they were, he having taken possession for the King of France. "This territory is all his Most Christian Majesty's," he said. "The fort we have built yonder we call Fort Bourbon, and none have any right here but such as own allegiance to Lewis XIV." He observed that nothing would cause a rupture of the friendly relations now subsisting between French and English but the trade in peltries, trade which he had too great reason to fear they hoped to initiate with the Indians in the spring. The elder Gillam coolly responded that the ship he commanded, and the spot on which they were then assembled, luckily belonged not to himself, but to the Hudson's Bay Company.