the indefensible deeds of violence and treachery, which later on were perpetrated by the Hudson’s Bay Company on the agents of the North-west, and returned with interest by the latter.  Often the New North-west agents and the original Nor’-westers would camp or build side by side, and share equably in the fur trade with the natives; their canoemen and French-Canadian voyageurs would sing their boating songs in chorus as they paddled side by side across the lakes and down the rivers, or marched with their heavy loads over the portages and along the trails.  Eventually, in 1804, the X.Y.  Company and the North-west fused into the North-west Trading Company, which until 1821 fought a hard fight against the encroachments and jealousy of the Hudson’s Bay Company.

During the period, however, from 1785 to 1812 the men of the north-west, of Montreal, and Grand Portage (as contrasted with those of Hudson Bay) effected a revolution in Canadian geography.  They played the role of imperial pioneers with a stubborn heroism, with little thought of personal gain, and in most cases with full foreknowledge and appreciation of what would accrue to the British Empire through their success.  It is impossible to relate the adventures of all of them within the space of any one book, or even of several volumes.  Moreover, this has been done already, not only in their own published journals and books, but in the admirable works of Elliot Coues, Dr. George Bryce, Dr. S.J.  Dawson, Alexander Ross, and others.  I must confine myself here to a description of the adventures of Sir Alexander Mackenzie, with a glance at incidents recorded by Simon Fraser and by Alexander Henry the Younger.

Mackenzie, having been appointed at the age of twenty-two a partner in the New North-west Company, proceeded to Grand Portage in 1785, and by the year 1788 (after founding Fort Chipewayan on Lake Athabaska) conceived the idea of following the mysterious Slave River to its ultimate outlet into the Arctic or the Pacific Ocean.  He left Fort Chipewayan on June 3, 1789, accompanied by four French-Canadian voyageurs, two French-Canadian women (wives of two voyageurs), a young German named John Steinbruck, and an Amerindian guide known as “English Chief”.  This last was a follower and pupil of the Matonabi who had guided Hearne to the Coppermine River and the eastern end of the Great Slave Lake.  The party of eight whites packed themselves and their goods into one birch-bark canoe.  English Chief and his two wives, together with an additional Amerindian guide and a hunter, travelled in a second and smaller canoe.  The expedition, moreover, was accompanied as far as Slave River by LE ROUX, a celebrated French-Canadian exploring trader who worked for the X.Y.  Company.  The journey down the Slave River was rendered difficult and dangerous by the rapids.  Several times the canoes and their loads had to be lugged past these falls by an overland portage.  Mosquitoes tortured