f the
investigations under way were pushed to extremes, both sides might find
themselves in awkward plight; but the fight had gone beyond the period of
pure commercialism. It was now a matter of deadly personal hate between
man and man, which, I am sorry to say, has been carried down by the
descendants of the old fighters almost to the present day. Each side
hoped to drive the other to bankruptcy; and the last throes of the {401}
deadly struggle were to be in Athabasca, the richest fur field. While
Selkirk is fighting his cause in the courts, he gives Robertson carte
blanche to gather two hundred more French voyageurs and proceed to the
Athabasca.

[Illustration: TRACKING ON ATHABASCA RIVER]

Midsummer of 1819 finds the stalwart Robertson crossing Lake Winnipeg to
ascend the Saskatchewan. At the mouth of the Saskatchewan a miserable
remnant of terrified men from the last Athabasca expedition is added to
Robertson's party; and John Clarke, breathing death and destruction
against the Nor'westers, goes along as lieutenant to Robertson.
Everywhere are signs of the lawless conditions of the fur trade. Not an
Indian dare speak to a Hudson's Bay man on pain of horsewhipping.
Instead of canoes gliding up and down the Saskatchewan like birds of
passage, reign a silence and solitude as of the dead. Though Robertson
bids his voyageurs sing and fire off muskets as signals for trade, not a
soul comes down to the river banks till the fleet of advancing traders is
well away from the Saskatchewan and halfway across the height of land
towards the Athabasca.

{402} The amazement of the Nor'westers at Fort Chippewyan in Athabasca
when Robertson pulled ashore at the conglomeration of huts known as Fort
Wedderburn, may be guessed. Two or three of the partners ran down to the
shore and called out that they would like to parley; but John Clarke,
filled with memory of former outrages and rocking the canoe in his fury
so that it almost upset, met the overtures with a volley of stentorian
abuse that sent the Nor'westers scampering and set Robertson laughing
till the tears ran down his cheeks.

The change of spirit on the part of the Nor'westers was easily explained.
The most of their men were absent on the hunting field. In a few weeks
Robertson had his huts in order and had dispatched his trappers down to
Slave Lake and westward up Peace River. Then, in October, came more
Nor'west partners from Montreal. The Nor'westers were stron