he was a hero; and she was closer right than any of them.
There was no logic in her worship; he was a married man, and a great man. She might better have set her heart upon young Bienville, or any of the gay, roistering Canadians, half Indian in talk and dress; but she did not. She was a girl, and Iberville became her hero, just as he was to all his men. They talked of him everywhere, of his exploits at sea, in the woods, in the frozen north. He and his brethren of the le Moyne family were the heroes of all Canada.
His personality captivated her simple, rough heart; he had come into her life like a vision from another world. "Ha, brave eyes!" The kindly words burned into her spirit, and true words they were. Bess Adams, in her guise as a boy, was playing a deadly, risky game and playing it well, for not a soul suspected her real sex.
Tucked away among her few personal effects was a little sheaf of folded papers, her sole heritage from her father, pilot of the English adventurers in Hudson's Bay.
The long frozen weeks passed, while the huge log fires blazed and hunters brought in moose and caribou for meat; and wounded men who brought in batches of prisoners told new tales of the snowshoe war and of Iberville's high deeds. Indians, feathered and painted, stalked about; Canadians, painted and feathered like their Iroquois friends, drank and talked and laughed. And suddenly came destiny.
Sails came up the bay—the fleet was in from France!
All Placentia roared and rocked with news. It was a dramatic moment. Hudson's Straits were open only a few short weeks in the year, ice-closed most of the time. Further, an English fleet was on the way to reinforce the English forts on the bay. Iberville must win that race! But Iberville was somewhere in the woods, finishing his conquest. Messengers went out to seek him in hot haste. They found him. Dropping everything else, he came in to Placentia. Bess Adams saw him arrive with his wild, bronzed Canadians. Out in the bay was his brother Serigny with four ships of war, the crews half dead with scurvy.
That night they crowded the tavern. Gallant officers from France, gentlemen of Canada, Iberville in his woolens, young Bienville in a gay uniform, the older Serigny in epaulets. Three of the famed le Moyne brethren, each of them a prince in looks and thought and deed! But it was to Iberville that the dark eyes of Bess Adams strayed, as she came and went.
She caught his voice, ringing, vibrant, rich.
"Go? Now, at once, the minute we can leave! Ice? Be damned to it! We'll fight through the straits somehow. If those English ships beat us to the bay?—but they shan't! One thing I'd give my right arm to have. Fort Nelson is the chief English post there, and we've no charts of the shore or the river. That coast is all shoals and shallows for miles out into the bay. It's destruction for any ship which has no chart. Ours are all old ones."
"We could get no better," said Serigny, frowning. "None of our pilots know the waters of the bay, Pierre. And what if we meet the English fleet?"
The laughing eyes of Iberville swept the circle of intent faces.
