Mr. Astor's Company from his not very honest
British employees, and the few Americans in the concern retreated
inland, and, after almost incredible sufferings from the attacks of
unfriendly Indians, succeeded in reaching the Mississippi.

[Illustration: THE KOOTENAY OR HEAD STREAM OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER]

This Columbia River had in reality been discovered at its sources, and
traced down to the sea, between 1807 and 1811 by DAVID THOMPSON (once
a Blue-coat boy in London; from 1784 to 1792 in the service of the
Hudson's Bay Company, and after that one of the most famous of the
Nor'-westers). The upper course of this river and its northern
affluents were annexed as British by David Thompson; the lower course
did not at once become the political property of the United States,
but was considered vaguely to be the joint property of both nations,
till the Oregon settlement of 1846. By the treaty of 1792, the
southern boundary of central Canada was agreed upon as being the 49th
degree of north latitude, but only between the Lake of the Woods and
the Rocky Mountains. The agreement of 1846 continued the 49th degree
boundary to the shore of the Pacific opposite Vancouver Island.

Prominent among the agents of the North-western Company who followed
Sir Alexander Mackenzie as a pioneer towards the Pacific shores was
ALEXANDER HENRY THE YOUNGER,[1] regarding whose journeys some extracts
may be given.

[Footnote 1: The nephew of the Alexander Henry already mentioned as an
explorer between 1761 and 1775.]

The first entry in his diary of 1799 is not particularly romantic, but
shows some of the unexpected dangers attending the life of an
adventurer in the far north-west. He had been riding through the
Assiniboin country in the autumn of 1799, probably after one of the
very indigestible meals which he describes here and there in his
pages. Alone, and crossing an open plain swarming with wolves, he was
seized suddenly with a violent colic, the pain of which was so
terrible that he could not remain in the saddle. He dismounted,
hobbled his horse, and threw himself on the grass, where he lay in
agony for two hours, expecting every moment would be his last, till,
quite exhausted, he fell asleep. He was awakened, however, by the
howling of the wolves advancing to tear him to pieces; yet he was so
weak that he was scarcely able to mount his horse, and then could only
proceed at a slow walk, with the wolves snapping at his horse's heels.