rctic Ocean.--He achieves a Passage over the Mountains to the
Pacific.--Note on Mandan Indians.--Mah-to-toh-pa's Vengeance.--Singular
Dwellings of the Mandans.--Their Bloody Ordeal.--Skin-boats.--Catlin's
Fanciful Theory.

We have seen how the dream of a short route to China and the Indies
inspired a long line of adventurous explorers. At the first it was
hoped that the Mississippi afforded such a passage. When it was known
beyond all doubt that the Great River flows into the Gulf, not the
"Western Sea," longing eyes were turned toward the western part of the
continent, in the hope that some stream would be found flowing into the
Pacific which would carry the keels of commerce Indiaward. The huge
barrier of the Rocky Mountains was {314} not known, and it was only in
the effort to reach the Pacific by water that they were discovered.

So important was the desired route considered that, in 1720, the French
King sent out the noted historian of New France, Father Charlevoix, to
explore westward and discover a way to the Pacific. He recommended two
plans, either to follow the Missouri River to its head-waters or to
push a chain of trading-posts gradually westward until the continent
should be crossed. The former plan was the one actually carried out,
eighty-three years later, by the famous Lewis and Clark expedition,
which crossed the Rockies and followed the Columbia River to the ocean.
The second plan was the easier and less expensive, and it was the
earlier to be tried. Still several years elapsed before the effort was
made.

The hardy adventurer was Pierre Gaultier de Varennes de la Verendrye,
son of the Governor of Three Rivers. Early experience as a fur-trader
taught him to know the Indians and the hard life of the northern
forests. Then came the war of the Spanish Succession, and, a loyal
French subject, he left his fur-trade, hastened to Europe, asked to
serve the King, and was given a commission as a lieutenant. The famous
field of {315} Malplaquet came near to witnessing the end of his
career. He lay on it for dead, gashed with the sabre and pierced with
bullets. Still he recovered, returned to New France, and plunged again
into the woods as a trader.

Being placed in command of the French outpost on Lake Nipigon, where he
also carried on a brisk trade, he heard many a tale from Indians who
came with furs. One of these stories fired his imagination. It was of
a great river flowing westward out of