The mountain is higher than the one at Quebec.  Vaster the view--vaster
the purple mountains, the painted forests, the valleys bounded by a sky
line that recedes before the explorer as the rainbow runs from the grasp
of a child.  This is not Cathay; it is a New France.  Before going back
to Quebec the adventurers follow a trail up the St. Lawrence far enough
to see that Lachine Rapids bar progress by boat; far enough, too, to see
that the Gaspe Indians had spoken truth when they told of another grand
river--the Ottawa--coming in from the north.


By the 11th of October Cartier is at Quebec.  His men have built a
palisaded fort on the banks of the St. Charles.  The boats are beached.
Indians scatter to their far hunting grounds.  Winter sets in.  Canadian
cold is new to these Frenchmen.  They huddle indoors instead of keeping
vigorous with exercise.  Ice hangs from the dismantled masts.  Drifts
heap almost to top of palisades.  Fear of the future falls on the crew.
Will they ever see France again?  Then scurvy breaks out.  The fort is
prostrate.  Cartier is afraid to ask aid of the wandering Indians lest
they learn his weakness.  To keep up show of strength he has his men fire
off muskets, batter the fort walls, march and drill and {18} tramp and
stamp, though twenty-five lie dead and only four are able to keep on
their feet.  The corpses are hidden in snowdrifts or crammed through ice
holes in the river with shot weighted to their feet.

In desperation Cartier calls on all the saints in the Christian calendar.
He erects a huge crucifix and orders all, well and ill, out in
procession.  Weak and hopeless, they move across the snows chanting
psalms.  That night one of the young noblemen died.  Toward spring an
Indian was seen apparently recovering from the same disease.  Cartier
asked him what had worked the cure and learned of the simple remedy of
brewed spruce juice.

By the time the Indians came from the winter hunt Cartier's men were in
full health.  Up at Hochelaga a chief had seized Cartier's gold-handled
dagger and pointed up the Ottawa whence came ore like the gold handle.
Failing to carry any minerals home, Cartier felt he must have witnesses
to his report.  The boats are rigged to sail, Chief Donnacona and eleven
others are lured on board, surrounded, forcibly seized, and treacherously
carried off to France.  May 6, 1536, the boats leave Quebec, stopping
only for water at St. Pierre, where the Breton fishermen have huts.  July
16 they anchor at St. Malo.


Did France realize that Cartier had found a new kingdom?  Not in the
least; but the home land gave heed to that story of minerals, and had the
kidnapped Indians baptized.  Donnacona and all his fellow-captives but
the little girl of Richelieu die, and Sieur de Roberval is appointed lord
paramount of Canada to equip Cartier with five vessels and scour the
jails of France for colonists.  Though the colonists are convicts, the
convicts are not criminals.  Some have been convicted for their religion,
some for their politics.  What with politics and war, it is May, 1541,
before the ships sail, and then Roberval has to wait another year for his
artillery, while Cartier goes ahead to build the forts.

From the first, things go wrong.  Head winds prolong the passage for
three months.  The stock on board is reduced to a diet of cider, and half
the cattle die.  Then the Indians of Quebec {19} ask awkward questions
about Donnacona.  Cartier flounders midway between truth and lie.
Donnacona had died, he said; as for the others, they have become as white
men.  Agona succeeds Donnacona as chief.  Agona is so pleased at the news
that he gives Cartier a suit of buckskin garnished with wampum, but the
rest of the Indians draw off in such resentment that Cartier deems it
wise to build his fort at a distance, and sails nine miles up to Cape
Rouge, where he constructs Bourg Royal.  Noel, his nephew, and Jalobert,
his brother-in-law, take two ships back to France.  While Cartier roams
exploring, Beaupre commands Bourg Royal.

In his roamings, ever with his eyes to earth for minerals, he finds
stones specked with mica, and false diamonds, whence the height above
Quebec is called Cape Diamond.  It is enough.  The crews spend the year
loading the ships with cargo of worthless stones, and set sail in May,
high of hope for wealth great as Spaniard carried from Peru.  June 8 the
ships slip in to St. John's, Newfoundland, for water.  Seventeen fishing
vessels rock to the tide inside the landlocked lagoon, and who comes
gliding up the Narrows of the harbor neck but Viceroy Roberval, mad with
envy when he hears of the diamond cargoes!  He breaks the head of a
Portuguese or two among the fishing fleet and forthwith orders Cartier
back to Quebec.

Cartier shifts anchor from too close range of Roberval's guns and says
nothing.  At dead of night he slips anchor altogether and steals away on
the tide, with only one little noiseless sail up on each ship through the
dark Narrows.  Once outside, he spreads his wings to the wind and is off
for France.  The diamonds prove worthless, but Cartier receives a title
and retires to a seigneurial mansion at St. Malo.

The episode did not improve Roberval's temper.  The new Viceroy was a
soldier and a martinet, and his authority had been defied.  With his two
hundred colonists, taken from the prisons of France, commanded by young
French officers,--a Lament and a La Salle among others,--he proceeded up
the coast of Newfoundland to enter the St. Lawrence by Belle Isle.  {20}
Among his people were women, and Roberval himself was accompanied by a
niece, Marguerite, who had the reputation of being a bold horsewoman and
prime favorite with the grandees who frequented her uncle's castle.
Perhaps Roberval had brought her to New France to break up her attachment
for a soldier.  Or the Viceroy may have been entirely ignorant of the
romance, but, anchored off Belle Isle,--Isle of Demons,--the angry
governor made an astounding discovery.  The girl had a lover on board, a
common soldier, and the two openly defied his interdict.  Coming after