lishment had been named, to commemorate his own name of Pierre.
It took a month to traverse the intricate chain of small lakes and
streams, with their many portages, connecting Lake Superior and Rainy
Lake.

{30}

After a short rest at Fort St Pierre, La Verendrye pushed on rapidly,
escorted in state by fifty canoes of Indians, to the Lake of the Woods.
Here he built a second post, Fort St Charles, on a peninsula running
out far into the lake on the south-west side--an admirable situation,
both for trading purposes and for defence. This fort he describes as
consisting of 'an enclosure made with four rows of posts, from twelve
to fifteen feet in height, in the form of an oblong square, within
which are a few rough cabins constructed of logs and clay, and covered
with bark.'

In the spring of 1735 Father Messager returned to Montreal, and with
him went La Jemeraye, to report the progress already made. He
described to the governor the difficulties they had encountered, and
urged that the king should be persuaded to assume the expense of
further exploration towards the Western Sea. The governor could,
however, do nothing.

Meanwhile Jean, La Verendrye's eldest son, had advanced still farther
and had made his way to Lake Winnipeg. He took with him a handful of
toughened veterans, and tramped on snow-shoes through the frozen
forest--four hundred and fifty miles in the stern midwinter {31} of a
region bitterly cold. Near the mouth of the Winnipeg river, where it
empties into Lake Winnipeg, they found an ideal site for the fort which
they intended to build. Immediately they set to work, felled trees,
drove stout stakes into the frozen ground for a stockade, put up a
rough shelter inside, and had everything ready for La Verendrye's
arrival in the spring. They named the post Fort Maurepas, in honour of
a prominent minister of the king in France at the time.

La Verendrye had now carried out, and more than carried out, the
agreement made with the governor Beauharnois. He had established a
chain of posts--strung like beads on a string--from Lake Superior to
Lake Winnipeg, from the river Kaministikwia to the open prairie. But
the distance he had traversed, the difficulties he had encountered,
and, above all, the expense incurred, had been far in excess of
anything he had anticipated. These were discouraging experiences. He
seemed at last to have reached the limit of his resources and
endurance. To advance farther