large
cargo of furs to Fort Chippewyan, he started up the river with a party
of seven white men and two Indians. The voyagers traveled in a birch
canoe twenty-five feet long, "but so light that two men could carry her
on a good road three or four miles without resting." "In this slender
vessel," he says, "we shipped provisions, goods for presents, arms,
ammunition, and baggage, to the weight of thirty thousand pounds, and
an equipage of ten people."

The difficulties and dangers were tremendous. Paddling and pushing and
poling up the rocky bed of a swift stream abounding in rapids, they
made slow progress. More than once the canoe {320} was broken.
Portages were often necessary. Again and again the crew, exhausted and
their clothing in tatters, sullenly insisted that there was no choice
but to turn back. But Mackenzie was a man of indomitable courage and
all the persistency of the Scotch race. He had already shown this
quality by taking the long journey and voyage from the wilds of
Athabasca to London, in order to study the use of astronomical
instruments, so that he might be qualified to make scientific
observations. Now he would not hear of turning back.

So the discouraged party, animated by Mackenzie, pushed on, climbed
over the dividing mountains, and came upon the head-waters of a stream
flowing westward, the one now called Fraser River. After following it
for several days, they struck off through dense forests, sometimes on
dizzy trails over snow-clad mountains, until they reached a rapid
river. On this they embarked in two canoes with several natives, and
thus reached the ocean--_the Pacific_!

Verendrye's dream was realized at last. The continent had been spanned
from East to West.

Twelve years later the same thing was done within the territory of the
United States by Lewis {321} and Clark, at the head of an expedition
sent out by President Jefferson. They spent the winter among the
Mandan Indians, the interesting people with whom the Verendryes had
come in contact. A note is added in which some information is given
about them.

NOTE ON THE MANDANS

These Indians first became known to white men through the expedition of
the elder Verendrye. They showed themselves hospitable and friendly to
him, as they always have been to our race, and they aided his sons in
their efforts to reach the Western Sea. Next we have quite full
references to them in the journals of Lewis and Clark. These e