The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Pioneers, by R.M. Ballantyne

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Title: The Pioneers

Author: R.M. Ballantyne

Release Date: June 6, 2007 [EBook #21691]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PIONEERS ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

THE PIONEERS, BY R.M. BALLANTYNE.

PREFACE.

Sir Alexander Mackenzie was one of the most energetic and successful of
the discoverers who have traversed the vast wilderness of British
America. He did his work single-handed, with slender means, and slight
encouragement, at a time when discovery was rare and the country almost
_terra incognita_. The long and difficult route, so recently traversed
by the Red River Expedition, was, to Sir Alexander, but the small
beginning of his far-reaching travels. He traced the great river which
bears his name to its outlet in the Polar Sea, and was the first to
cross the Rocky Mountains in those latitudes and descend to the Pacific
ocean.

Being a man of action, and not particularly enamoured of the pen, his
journal [For a sight of which apply to the British Museum, London, or
the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh]--full though it be of important and
most interesting facts--is a bare and unadorned though valuable record
of progress made, of work done, which is unsuited to juvenile minds,
besides being bulky and scarce.

Having spent some years in Rupert's Land, and seen something of Red
Indian and fur-trading life, I have ventured to weave the incidents of
Sir Alexander's narratives into a story which, it is hoped, may prove
interesting to the young--perchance, also, to the old.

I take this opportunity of acknowledging myself deeply indebted to Sir
Alexander's daughter, Miss Mackenzie, and to his two sons, for kindly
placing at my disposal all the information in their possession.

R.M.B.

EDINBURGH, 1872.

CHAPTER ONE.

SHOWS HOW IT BEGAN.

"The world is round," said somebody in ancient times to somebody else.

"Not at all; it is flat--flat as a pancake," replied somebody else to
somebody; "and if you were to travel far enough you might get to the end
of it and tumble over the edge, if so di