All the bullets had been lost.  A few were recovered.  Powder was spread out to dry; and the men flatly refused to go one foot farther.  Mackenzie listened to the revolt without a word.  He got their clothes dry and their benumbed limbs warmed over a roaring fire.  He fed them till their spirits had risen.  Then he quietly remarked that the experience would teach them how to run rapids in the future.  Men of the North—­to turn back?  Such a thing had never been known in the history of the Northwest Fur Company.  It would disgrace them forever.  Think of the honor of conquering disaster.  Then he vowed that he would go ahead, whether the men accompanied him or not.  Then he set them to patching the canoe with oil-cloth and bits of bark; but large sheets of birch bark are rare in the Rockies; and the patched canoe weighed so heavily that the men could scarcely carry it.  It took them fourteen hours to make the three-mile portage of these rapids.  The Indian from the mountain tribe had lost heart.  Mackenzie and Mackay watched him by turns at night; but the fellow got away under cover of darkness, the crew conniving at the escape in order to compel Mackenzie to turn back.  Finally the river wound into a large stream on the west side of the main range of the Rockies.  Mackenzie had crossed the Divide.

For a week after crossing the Divide, the canoe followed the course of the river southward.  This was not what Mackenzie expected.  He sought a stream flowing directly westward, and was keenly alert for sign of Indian encampment where he might learn the shortest way to the Western Sea.  Once the smoke of a camp-fire rose through the bordering forest; but no sooner had Mackenzie’s interpreters approached than the savages fired volley after volley of arrows and swiftly decamped, leaving no trace of a trail.  There was nothing to do but continue down the devious course of the uncertain river.  The current was swift and the outlook cut off by the towering mountains; but in a bend of the river they came on an Indian canoe drawn ashore.  A savage was just emerging from a side stream when Mackenzie’s men came in view.  With a wild whoop, the fellow made off for the woods; and in a trice the narrow river was lined with naked warriors, brandishing spears and displaying the most outrageous hostility.  When Mackenzie attempted to land, arrows hissed past the canoe, which they might have punctured and sunk.  Determined to learn the way westward from these Indians, Mackenzie tried strategy.  He ordered his men to float some distance from the savages.  Then he landed alone on the shore opposite the hostiles, having sent one of his interpreters by a detour through the woods to lie in ambush with fusee ready for instant action.  Throwing aside weapons, Mackenzie displayed tempting trinkets.  The warriors conferred, hesitated, jumped in the canoes, and came, backing stern foremost, toward Mackenzie.  He threw out presents.  They came ashore and were presently sitting by his side.