topful of spray that salt water spilled over at every word.

"Split me fore and aft," exclaims Ben, "if I sail not a ship of my own
next year! I'll take the boat without commission. Stocking and my
father have made an offer," he hinted darkly. "I'll go without
commission!"

"And risk being strangled for't, if the French governor catch you."

"Body o' me!" flouts Ben, ripping out a peck of oaths that had cost
dear and meant a day in the stocks if the elders heard, "who's going to
inform when my father sails the only other ship in the bay? Devil sink
my soul to the bottom of the sea if I don't take a boat to Hudson Bay
under the French governor's nose!"

"A boat of your own," I laughed. "What for, Ben?"

"For the same as your Prince Rupert, Prince Robber, took his. Go out
light as a cork, come back loaded with Spanish gold to the water-line."
Ben paused to take a pinch of snuff and display his new embroidered
waist-coat.

"Look you at the wealth in the beaver trade," he added. "M. Radisson
went home with George Carteret not worth a curse, formed the Fur
Company, and came back from Hudson Bay with pelts packed to the
quarter-deck. Devil sink me! but they say, after the fur sale, the
gentlemen adventurers had to haul the gold through London streets with
carts! Bread o' grace, Ramsay, have half an eye for your own purse!"
he urged. "There is a life for a man o' spirit! Why don't you join
the beaver trade, Ramsay?"