the canoes. That signified peace. The
ships were moored to trees, and the white men went ashore in that
harbor to become famous as the rendezvous of Pacific fur traders,
Nootka Sound, on the sea side of Vancouver Island.

[Illustration: CAPTAIN COOK]

Presently the waters were literally swarming with Indian canoes, and in
a few days Cook's crews had received thousands of dollars' worth of
sea-otter skins for such worthless baubles as tin mirrors and brass
rings and bits of red calico. This was the beginning of the fur trade
in sea otter with Americans and English. Some of the naked savages
were observed wearing metal ornaments of European make. Cook did not
think of the Russian fur traders to the north, but easily persuaded
himself these objects had come from the English fur traders of Hudson
Bay, and so inferred there _must_ be a Northeast Passage. By April,
Cook's ships were once more afloat, {321} gliding among the sylvan
channels of countless wooded islands up past Sitka harbor, where the
Russians later built their fort, round westward beneath the towering
opal dome of Mount St. Elias, which Bering had named, to the waters
bordering Alaska; but, as the world knows, though the ships penetrated
up the channels of many roily waters, they found no open passage. Cook
comes down to the Sandwich Islands, New Year of 1779. There the vices
of his white crew arouse the enmity of the pagan savages. In a riot
over the theft of a rowboat, Cook and a few men are surrounded by an
enraged mob. By some mistake the white sailors rowing out from shore
fire on the mob surrounding Cook. Instantly a dagger rips under Cook's
shoulder blade. In another second Cook and his men are literally
hacked to pieces. All night the conch shells of the savages blow their
war challenge through the darkness and the signal fires dance on the
mountains. By dint of persuasion and threats the white men compel the
natives to restore the mangled remains of the commander. Sunday,
February 21, amid a silence as of death over the waters, the body of
the dead explorer is committed to the deep.

[Illustration: FORT CHURCHILL, AS IT WAS IN 1777]

[Illustration: TOTEM POLES, BRITISH COLUMBIA]

The chance discovery of the sea-otter trade by Cook's crew at Nootka
brings hosts of English and American adventurers to the Pacific Coast
of Canada. There is Meares, the English officer from China, who builds
a rabbit hutch of a barracks at Nootka and