ways; the tow-line snapped like a pistol shot, for just one instant
the canoe hung poised, and then the back-wash of an enormous boulder
drove her bow foremost ashore, where the _voyageurs_ regained the
tow-line.

[Illustration: Slave Lake Indians.]

The men had not bargained on this kind of work. They bluntly declared
that it was absurd trying to go up canons with such cascades.
Mackenzie paid no heed to the murmurings. He got his crew to the top
of the hill, spread out the best of a regale--including tea sweetened
with sugar--and while the men were stimulating courage by a feast, he
went ahead to reconnoitre the gorge. Windfalls of enormous spruce
trees, with a thickness twice the height of a man, lay on a steep
declivity of sliding rock. Up this climbed Mackenzie, clothes torn to
tatters by devil's club (a thorn bush with spines like needles), boots
hacked to pieces by the sharp rocks, and feet gashed with cuts. The
prospect was not bright. As far as he could see the river was one
succession of cataracts fifty feet wide walled in by stupendous
precipices, down which rolled great boulders, shattering to pebbles as
they fell. The men were right. No canoe could go up that stream.
Mackenzie came back, set his men to repairing the canoe and making axe
handles, to avoid the idleness that breeds mutiny, and sent Mackay
ahead to see how far the rapids extended. Mackay reported that the
_portage_ would be nine miles over the mountain.

Leading the way, axe in hand, Mackenzie began felling trees so that the
trunks formed an outer railing to prevent a fall down the precipice.
Up this trail they warped the canoe by pulling the tow-line round
stumps, five men going in advance to cut the way, five hauling and
pushing the canoe. In one day progress was three miles. By five in
the afternoon the men were so exhausted that they went to bed--if bare
ground with sky overhead could be called bed. One thing alone
encouraged them: as they rose higher up the mountain side, they saw
that the green edges of the glaciers and the eternal snows projected
over the precipices. They were nearing the summit--they must surely
soon cross the Divide. The air grew colder. For three days the
choppers worked in their blanket coats. When they finally got the
canoe down to the river-bed, it was to see another range of impassable
mountains barring the way westward. All that kept Mackenzie's men from
turning back was that awful _portage_ o