[Footnote 15:  The term Rocky Mountains was probably first officially applied by the American expedition, under Lewis and Clarke, sent out by the United States Government in 1804 to take possession of the coast of Oregon, but it was used twenty or thirty years earlier by British explorers of Western Canada.]

On the 12th of January they reached the very foot of the mountains, the slopes of which they saw were thickly covered with magnificent forests of pine and fir—­forests, that have since suffered to an appalling extent from annual bush fires, which so far the United States Government seems unable to check.  Here they were to meet with a bitter disappointment.  They were travelling with a very large war party of the Bow Indians for the purpose, if need be, of attacking and routing the Shoshones; but a Shoshone camp at the base of the mountains was found to be deserted, and the Bow Indians jumped to the conclusion that the Shoshones had turned back through the forest unseen, and were now making with all speed for the principal war camp of the Bow Indians, where they would massacre the women and children.  They would listen to no remonstrances from the two Frenchmen, who perforce had also to travel back, either alone or with the Bow Indians, in the direction of their war camp, where the idea of a Shoshone attack was found to be baseless.  Eventually, the two La Verendrye brothers were obliged to make their way to the Missouri River, and abandon any idea of finding a way to the Western Ocean across the Rocky Mountains.

The French pioneers had already heard of the Spaniards in California, and the possibility of getting into touch with them.  They had now discovered, first of all Europeans, the Rocky Mountains—­that great snowy range of North America which extends from Robson Peak on the eastern borders of British Columbia to Baldy Peak in New Mexico.

Afterwards the La Verendryes directed their attention more to the opportunities of reaching the Far West through the streams that flowed into the system of Lake Winnipeg, and in this way discovered, in or about 1743, the great River Saskatchewan.  This river La Verendrye’s sons followed up till they reached the junction between the North and the South Rivers, and then they probably learnt a good deal more of the Southern Saskatchewan, on which they may have built one or two posts.  La Verendrye himself thought that this would prove to be the best route by which the French could reach the Western Sea.

By this time the French Government was becoming alive to the importance of these discoveries, and it conferred a decoration on La Verendrye, and allowed him to hope that he might be furnished with means for further exploration.  But he died soon afterwards, at the close of 1749, and after his death his sons were treated with gross ingratitude and neglect.  The self-seeking Governor of New France endeavoured to secure the fur trade for his own friends, and sent an officer with