at the case was quite
beyond his skill; but as it was necessary to relieve the Indian's mind,
he attempted a cure. He prepared a kind of volatile liniment of rum and
soap, with which he ordered the arm to be rubbed. The success of this
treatment was doubtful, because at first it drove the man mad, and the
red stripe not only increased but extended in the form of several
blotches on the body, and was accompanied by pains in the stomach.
Seeing this, our amateur doctor fell back on the old plan of bleeding,
an operation which he had never before performed. The result was
marvellous. The following night the man was much better, and ere long
was restored to his former health, and filled with gratitude.

Again, on another occasion, a young Indian's gun burst and maimed his
hand so that the thumb hung by a mere strip of flesh. When he came to
the fort his wound was in a very offensive state. His friends had done
their best for him, but as their panacea for everything consisted in
singing or howling, and blowing on the affected part, he was not
perceptibly the better for their exertions. The youth's life being in
danger, Mackenzie once more tried his skill. He applied to it a
poultice of bark stripped from the roots of the spruce fir, having first
washed the wound with the juice of the bark. This proved to be a very
painful dressing, but it cleaned the wound effectually. He then cut off
the pendent thumb, and applied a dressing of salve composed of Canadian
balsam, wax, and tallow dropped from a burning candle into the water.
As before, the treatment was successful, insomuch that the young
red-skin was soon in the hunting-field again, and brought an elk's
tongue as a fee to his benefactor.

During the winter he was visited by a few Rocky Mountain Indians, who
gave him some important information; namely, that the Peace River in the
mountain districts was interrupted by numerous bad rapids and falls, and
that, towards the mid-day sun, there was another great river whose
current _ran in an opposite direction_, the distance between the sources
of the two rivers being short.

The winter, with its dreary storms and bitter colds, at length passed
away, and genial spring returned. As soon as the ice broke up,
preparations were made for an immediate start. Their large birch-bark
canoe had been overhauled and repaired. Her dimensions were twenty-five
feet long inside, two feet two inches deep, and four feet nine inches
w