the
North-West partners was to meet at Fort William, at the head of Lake
Superior. I learned that Robertson's brigade were anxious to slip past
our headquarters at Fort William before the meeting and would set out
that very day. I also heard they had sent forward a messenger to notify
the Hudson's Bay governor at Fort Douglas of their brigade's coming.

Almost before I realized it, we were speeding up the Ottawa, past a
second and third and fourth Ste. Anne's; for she is the _voyageurs'_
patron saint and her name dots Canada's map like ink-blots on a boy's
copybook. Wherever a Ste. Anne's is now found, there has the _voyageur_
of long ago passed and repassed. In places the surface of the river,
gliding to meet us, became oily, almost glassy, as if the wave-current
ran too fast to ripple out to the banks. Then little eddies began
whirling in the corrugated water and our paddlers with labored breath
bent hard to their task. By such signs I learned to know when we were
stemming the tide of some raging waterfall, or swift rapid. There would
follow quick disembarking, hurried portages over land through a tangle
of forest, or up slippery, damp rocks, a noisy launching far above the
torrent and swifter progress when the birch canoes touched water again.
Such was the tireless pace, which made North-West _voyageurs_ famous.
Such was the work the great _Bourgeois_ exacted of their men. A liberal
supply of rum, when stoppages were made, and of bread and meat for each
meal--better fare than was usually given by the trading companies--did
much to encourage the tripmen. Each man was doing his utmost to
out-distance the bold rivals following by our route. The _Bourgeois_
were to meet at Fort William early in June. At all hazards we were
determined to notify our company of the enemy's invading flotilla; and
without margin for accidents we had but a month to cross half a
continent.

At nightfall the fourth day from the shrine, after a tiresome nine-mile
traverse past the Chaudiere Falls of the Ottawa, glittering camp-fires
on the river bank ahead showed where a fresh relay of canoemen awaited
us. They were immediately taken into the different crews and
night-shifts of paddlers put to work. It was quite dark, when the new
hands joined us; but in the moonlight, as the chief steersman told off
the men by name, I watched each tawny figure step quickly to his place
in the canoes, with that gliding Indian motion, which scarcely rocked
the