was hauled ashore. During the entire crisis the Indians sat
on top of the canoe, howling with terror.

All the bullets had been lost. A few were recovered. Powder was
spread out to dry; and the men flatly refused to go one foot farther.
Mackenzie listened to the revolt without a word. He got their clothes
dry and their benumbed limbs warmed over a roaring fire. He fed them
till their spirits had risen. Then he quietly remarked that the
experience would teach them how to run rapids in the future. Men of
the North--to turn back? Such a thing had never been known in the
history of the Northwest Fur Company. It would disgrace them forever.
Think of the honor of conquering disaster. Then he vowed that he would
go ahead, whether the men accompanied him or not. Then he set them to
patching the canoe with oil-cloth and bits of bark; but large sheets of
birch bark are rare in the Rockies; and the patched canoe weighed so
heavily that the men could scarcely carry it. It took them fourteen
hours to make the three-mile _portage_ of these rapids. The Indian
from the mountain tribe had lost heart. Mackenzie and Mackay watched
him by turns at night; but the fellow got away under cover of darkness,
the crew conniving at the escape in order to compel Mackenzie to turn
back. Finally the river wound into a large stream on the west side of
the main range of the Rockies. Mackenzie had crossed the Divide.

For a week after crossing the Divide, the canoe followed the course of
the river southward. This was not what Mackenzie expected. He sought
a stream flowing directly westward, and was keenly alert for sign of
Indian encampment where he might learn the shortest way to the Western
Sea. Once the smoke of a camp-fire rose through the bordering forest;
but no sooner had Mackenzie's interpreters approached than the savages
fired volley after volley of arrows and swiftly decamped, leaving no
trace of a trail. There was nothing to do but continue down the
devious course of the uncertain river. The current was swift and the
outlook cut off by the towering mountains; but in a bend of the river
they came on an Indian canoe drawn ashore. A savage was just emerging
from a side stream when Mackenzie's men came in view. With a wild
whoop, the fellow made off for the woods; and in a trice the narrow
river was lined with naked warriors, brandishing spears and displaying
the most outrageous hostility. When Mackenzie attempted to lan