n Indian who had acted as guide across the portage gave
Mackenzie the slip and escaped in the {81} woods. For several days
after this most of the party trudged on foot carrying the cargo, while
four of the most experienced canoemen brought the empty canoe down the
rapids. But on June 17 they found further progress by water impossible
owing to masses of driftwood in the stream. They were now, however,
less than a mile from the south fork of the Fraser; the men carried the
canoe on their shoulders across the intervening neck of swamp, and at
last the explorers 'enjoyed the inexpressible satisfaction' of finding
themselves on the banks of a broad, navigable river, on the west side
of the Great Divide.

The point where they embarked, on the morning of June 18, was about
thirty-five miles above the Nechaco, or north fork of the Fraser, just
at the upper end of the great bend where the south fork, flowing to the
north-west, sweeps round in a semicircle, joins its confluent, and
pours southward to the sea. This trend of the river to the south was
not what Mackenzie expected. He wanted to follow a stream leading
west. Without noticing it, he had passed the north fork, the Nechaco,
and was sweeping down the main stream of the Fraser, where towering
mountains cut off the view ahead, and the powerful {82} rush of the
waters foreboded hard going, if not more rapids and cataracts.
Mackenzie must have a new guide. The Carrier Indians dwelt along this
river, but they appeared to be truculently hostile. On June 21 a party
of these Indians stood on one of the banks and shot arrows at the
explorers and rolled stones from the precipices. Mackenzie landed on
the opposite bank, after sending a hunter by a wide detour through the
woods behind the Indians on the other shore, with orders to shoot
instantly if the savages threatened either the canoe or himself. In
full sight of the Indians Mackenzie threw trinkets in profusion on the
ground, laid down his musket and pistol, and held up his arms in token
of friendship. The savages understood the meaning of his actions. Two
of them jumped into a dug-out and came poling across to him.
Suspiciously and very timidly they landed. Mackenzie threw himself on
the ground, and on the sands traced his path through the 'shining
mountains.' By Indian sign-language he told them he wanted to go to
the sea; and, disarmed of all suspicion, the Indians were presently on
the ground beside him, drawin