be
hardy and experienced voyageurs who could safely navigate these mad
waters in frail bark canoes. Slowly they made their way along the
north shore, buffeted by storms and in constant peril of their lives,
until at last, on {28} August 26, they reached the Grand Portage, near
the mouth of the Pigeon river, or about fifteen leagues south-west of
Fort Kaministikwia, where the city of Fort William now stands.

La Verendrye would have pushed on at once for Lac la Pluie, or Rainy
Lake, where he purposed to build the first of his western posts, but
when he ordered his men to make the portage there was first deep
muttering, and then open mutiny. Two or three of the boatmen, bribed
by La Verendrye's enemies at Montreal, had drawn such terrible pictures
of the horrors before them, and had so played upon the fears of their
superstitious comrades, that these now refused flatly to follow their
leader into the unhallowed and fiend-infested regions which lay beyond.
The hardships they had already endured, and the further hardships of
the long and difficult series of portages which lay between them and
Rainy Lake, also served to dishearten the men. Some of them, however,
had been with La Jemeraye at Lake Pepin, on the Mississippi, and were
not to be dismayed. These La Verendrye persuaded to continue the
exploration. The others gradually weakened in their opposition, and at
last it was agreed that La Jemeraye, with half the men, should go on to
Rainy Lake and build a {29} fort there, while La Verendrye, with the
other half, should spend the winter at Kaministikwia, and keep the
expedition supplied with provisions.

In this way the winter passed. The leader was, we may be sure,
restless at the delay and impatient to advance farther. The spring
brought good news. Late in May La Jemeraye returned from Rainy Lake,
bringing canoes laden with valuable furs, the result of the winter's
traffic. These were immediately sent on to Michilimackinac, for
shipment to the partners at Montreal. La Jemeraye reported that he had
built a fort at the foot of a series of rapids, where Rainy Lake
discharges into the river of the same name. He had built the fort in a
meadow, among groves of oak. The lake teemed with fish, and the woods
which lined its shores were alive with game, large and small. The
picture was one to make La Verendrye even more eager to advance. On
June 8 he set out with his entire party for Fort St Pierre, as the new
estab