laim to a monopoly drove the Indians to the French;

(5) Nothing was done to carry out the terms of the charter in finding a
North-West Passage.

All this, however, did not answer the great question: if the Company
retired from the Bay, who or what was to resist the encroachments of the
French? This consideration saved the situation for the adventurers.
Their charter was confirmed.

The opposition to the extension of the charter compelled the Company to
show what it had been doing in the way of exploration; and the journey
of Henry Kelsey, the London apprentice boy, to the country of the
Assiniboines, was put on file in the Company records. Kelsey had not at
first fitted in very well with the martinet rules of fort life at
Nelson, and in 1690, after a switching for some breach of discipline, he
had jumped over the walls and run away with the Indians. Where he went
on this first trip is not known. Some time before the spring of the next
year an Indian runner brought word back to the fort from Kelsey: on
condition of pardon he was willing to make a journey of exploration
inland. The pardon was readily granted and the youth was supplied with
equipment. Accordingly, on July 15, 1691, Kelsey left the camping-place
of the Assiniboines--thought to be the modern Split Lake--and with some
Indian hunters set off overland on foot. It is difficult to follow his
itinerary, for he employs only Indian names in his narrative. He
travelled five hundred miles west of Split Lake presumably without
touching on the Saskatchewan or the Churchill, for his journal gives not
the remotest hint of these rivers. We are therefore led to believe that
he must have traversed the semi-barren country west of Lac du Brochet,
or Reindeer Lake as it is called on the map. He encountered vast herds
of what he called buffalo, though his description reminds us more of the
musk ox of the barren lands than of the buffalo. He describes the summer
as very dry and game as very scarce, on the first part of the trip; and
this also applies to the half-barren lands west of Reindeer Lake.
Hairbreadth escapes were not lacking on the trip of the boy explorer.
Once, completely exhausted from a swift march, Kelsey fell asleep on the
trail. When he awoke, there was not a sign of the straggling hunters.
Kelsey waited for nightfall and by the reflection of the fires in the
sky found his way back to the camp of his companions. At another time he
awoke to find the high dry gra