and Clark. One of the Nor'westers who
entered Astor's service was Alexander Mackay, Mackenzie's companion on
the journey to the coast; another was a brother of the Stuart who had
accompanied Fraser through New Caledonia; and a third was a {100}
brother of the M'Dougall who commanded Fort M'Leod, the first fort
built by the Nor'westers in New Caledonia.

In the light of subsequent developments, it is a matter for speculation
whether these Nor'westers joined Astor purposely to overthrow his
scheme in the interests of their old company; or were later bribed to
desert him; or, as is most likely, simply grew dissatisfied with the
inexperienced, blundering mismanagement of Astor's company, and
reverted gladly to their old service. However that may have been, it
is certain that the North-West Company did not fail to take notice of
the plans that Astor had set afoot for the Pacific fur trade; for in a
secret session of the partners, at Fort William on Lake Superior, '_it
was decided in council that the Company should send to Columbia River,
where the Americans had established Astoria, and that a party should
proceed overland to the coast_.'

It puzzled the Nor'westers to learn that the river Fraser had explored
in 1808 was not the Columbia. Where, then, were the upper reaches of
the great River of the West which Gray and Vancouver had reported? The
company issued urgent instructions to its traders in the Far West to
keep pushing up {101} the North and South Saskatchewan, up the Red
Deer, up the Bow, up the Athabaska, up the Smoky, up the Pembina, and
to press over the mountains wherever any river led oceanwards through
the passes. This duty of finding new passable ways to the sea was
especially incumbent on the company's surveyor and astronomer, David
Thompson. He was formerly of the Hudson's Bay Company, but had come
over to the Nor'westers, and in their service had surveyed from the
Assiniboine to the Missouri and from Lake Superior to the Saskatchewan.

Towards the spring of 1799 Thompson had been on the North Saskatchewan
and had moved round the region of Lesser Slave Lake. That year, at
Grand Portage, at the annual meeting of the traders of the North-West
Company, he was ordered to begin a thorough exploration of the
mountains; and the spring of 1800 saw him at Rocky Mountain House[1] on
the upper reaches of the North Saskatchewan above the junction of the
Clearwater. Hitherto the Nor'westers had crossed the {102