Frontenac and La Salle could both draw profit from the
trade at this point in the interior.

La Salle was not alone in knowing that those who first
met the Indians in the spring secured the best furs at
the best bargains. This information was shared by many,
including Francois Perrot. Just above the island of
Montreal is another island, which lies between Lake St
Louis and the Lake of Two Mountains. Perrot, appreciating
the advantage of a strategic position, had fixed there
his own trading-post, and to this day the island bears
his name. Now, with Frontenac as a sleeping partner of
La Salle there were all the elements of trouble, for
Perrot and Frontenac were rival traders. Both were wrathful
men and each had a selfish interest to fight for, quite
apart from any dispute as to the jurisdiction of Quebec
over Montreal.

Under such circumstances the one thing lacking was a
ground of action. This Frontenac found in the existing
edict against the coureurs de bois-those wild spirits
who roamed the woods in the hope of making great profits
through the fur trade, from which by law they were
excluded, and provoked the special disfavour of the
missionary by the scandals of their lives, which gave
the Indians a low idea of French morality. Thus in the
eyes of both Church and State the coureur de bois was a
mauvais sujet, and the offence of taking to the forest
without a licence became punishable by death or the
galleys.