IN WHICH THE HUNTERS ARE OUT Iberville had a good ship.

The Maid of Provence carried a handful of guns and a small but carefully chosen crew, together with Sainte-Helene, Perrot, and the lad Maurice Joval, who had conceived for Iberville friendship nigh to adoration.

Those were days when the young were encouraged to adventure, and Iberville had no compunction in giving the boy this further taste of daring.
Iberville, thorough sailor as he was, had chosen for his captain one who had sailed the Spanish Main.

He had commanded on merchant-ships which had been suddenly turned into men-of-war, and was suited to the present enterprise: taciturn, harsh of voice, singularly impatient, but a perfect seaman and as brave as could be.

He had come to Quebec late the previous autumn with the remnants of a ship which, rotten when she left the port of Havre, had sprung a leak in mid-ocean, had met a storm, lost her mainmast, and by the time she reached the St.Lawrence had scarce a stick standing.