ore, ordered that
operations should be commenced at once, and that the choice of men to
carry out the end in view was graciously left to the chief trader's
well-known sagacity.

Upon receiving this communication, the chief trader selected a gentleman
named Mr Whyte to lead the party; gave him a clerk and five men;
provided him with a boat and a large supply of goods necessary for
trade, implements requisite for building an establishment, and sent him
off with a hearty shake of the hand and a recommendation to "go and
prosper."

Charles Kennedy spent part of the previous year at Rocky Mountain House,
where he had shown so much energy in conducting the trade, especially
what he called the "rough and tumble" part of it, that he was selected
as the clerk to accompany Mr Whyte to his new ground. After proceeding
up many rivers, whose waters had seldom borne the craft of white men,
and across innumerable lakes, the party reached a spot that presented so
inviting an aspect that it was resolved to pitch their tent there for a
time, and, if things in the way of trade and provision looked
favourable, establish themselves altogether. The place was situated on
the margin of a large lake, whose shores were covered with the most
luxuriant verdure, and whose waters teemed with the finest fish, while
the air was alive with wild-fowl, and the woods swarming with game.
Here Mr Whyte rested awhile; and having found everything to his
satisfaction, he took his axe, selected a green lawn that commanded an
extensive view of the lake, and going up to a tall larch, struck the
steel into it, and thus put the first touch to an establishment which
afterwards went by the name of Stoney Creek.

A solitary Indian, whom they had met with on the way to their new home,
had informed them that a large band of Knisteneux had lately migrated to
a river about four days' journey beyond the lake, at which they halted;
and when the new fort was just beginning to spring up, our friend
Charley and the interpreter, Jacques Caradoc, were ordered by Mr Whyte
to make a canoe, and then, embarking in it, to proceed to the Indian
camp, to inform the natives of their rare good luck in having a band of
white men come to settle near their lands to trade with them. The
interpreter and Charley soon found birch bark, pine roots for sewing it,
and gum for plastering the seams, wherewith they constructed the light
machine whose progress we have partly traced in the last c