is hard, white man, it is hard!” And harder the way became.  For nine nights fog lay so heavily on the river that not a star was seen.  This was followed by driving rain and wind.  Mackenzie hoisted a three-foot sail and cut over the water before the wind with the hiss of a boiling kettle.  Though the sail did the work of the paddles, it gave the voyageurs no respite.  Cramped and rain-soaked, they had to bail out water to keep the canoe afloat.  In this fashion the boats entered Slave Lake, a large body of water with one horn pointing west, the other east.  Out of both horns led unknown rivers.  Which way should Mackenzie go?  Low-lying marshlands—­beaver meadows where the wattled houses of the beaver had stopped up the current of streams till moss overgrew the swamps and the land became quaking muskeg—­lay along the shores of the lake.  There were islands in deep water, where caribou had taken refuge, travelling over ice in winter for the calves to be safe in summer from wolf pack and bear.  Mackenzie hired a guide from the Slave Indians to pilot the canoes over the lake; but the man proved useless.  Days were wasted poking through mist and rushes trying to find an outlet to the Grand River of the North.  Finally, English Chief lost his temper and threatened to kill the Slave Indian unless he succeeded in taking the canoes out of the lake.  The waters presently narrowed to half a mile; the current began to race with a hiss; sails were hoisted on fishing-poles; and Mackenzie found himself out of the rushes on the Grand River to the west of Slave Lake.

[Illustration:  Fort William, Headquarters Northwest Company, Lake Superior.]

Here pause was made at a camp of Dog Ribs, who took the bottom from the courage of Mackenzie’s comrades by gruesome predictions that old age would come upon the voyageurs before they reached salt water.  There were impassable falls ahead.  The river flowed through a land of famine peopled by a monstrous race of hostiles who massacred all Indians from the South.  The effect of these cheerful prophecies was that the Slave Lake guide refused to go on.  English Chief bodily put the recalcitrant into a canoe and forced him ahead at the end of a paddle.  Snow-capped mountains loomed to the west.  The river from Bear Lake was passed, greenish of hue like the sea, and the Slave Lake guide now feigned such illness that watch was kept day and night to prevent his escape.  The river now began to wind, with lofty ramparts on each side; and once, at a sharp bend in the current, Mackenzie looked back to see Slave Lake Indians following to aid the guide in escaping.  After that one of the white men slept with the fellow each night to prevent desertion; but during the confusion of a terrific thunder-storm, when tents and cooking utensils were hurled about their heads, the Slave succeeded in giving his watchers the slip.  Mackenzie promptly stopped at an encampment of strange Indians, and failing