m the west, they saw opening
up on the left hand a wide valley coming down from the northwest.

The character of the country, and the distance they had traveled, left
no doubt whatever in their minds that this was the Finlay River, the
other head-stream of the Peace River. They therefore now felt as
though they knew precisely where they were. Being tired, they pitched
their camp not far below the mouth of the Finlay, and busied
themselves in looking over their boats and supplies. They knew that
the dreaded Finlay rapids lay only two miles below them.

They were now passing down a river which had grown to a very
considerable stream, sometimes with high banks, again with shores
rather low and marshy, and often broken with many islands scattered
across an expanse of water sometimes nearly a quarter of a mile
in extent. The last forty miles of the stream to the junction of
the Finlay had averaged not more rapid but much heavier than the
current had seemed toward the headwaters. The roar of the rapids
they approached now came up-stream with a heavier note, and was
distinguishable at much greater distances, and the boats in passing
through some of the heavier rapids did so in the midst of a din quite
different from the gentle babble of the shallow stream far toward its
source. The boom of the bad water far below this camp made them
uneasy.

"Well," said Rob, as they sat in camp near the shore, "we know where
we are now. We have passed the mouth of the McLeod outlet, and we have
passed the Nation River and everything else that comes in from the
west. Here we turn to the east. It must be nearly one hundred and
fifty miles to the real gate of the Rockies--at the Canyon of the Rocky
Mountains, as the first traders called it."

"It looks like a pretty big river now," said Jesse dubiously.

"I would like to hope it's no worse than it has been just above here,"
said Rob, "but I fear it is, from all I know. Mackenzie got it in high
water, and he only averaged half a mile an hour for a long time going
up, along in here. Of course coming down we could pick our way better
than he could."

"We have been rather lucky on the whole," said Alex, "for, frankly,
the water has been rather worse for canoes than I thought it would be.
Moreover, it is still larger below here. But that's not the worst of
it."

"What do you mean, Alex?" inquired John.

"You ought not to need to ask me," replied the old hunter. "You're all
_voyageurs_, are