The situation was saved.  The hostiles could not fire without wounding one of their own people; and the old man could explain the real reason for Mackenzie’s return.  Rations had been reduced to two meals a day.  The men were still sulking from the perils of the siege when the canoe struck a stump that knocked a hole in the keel, “which,” reports Mackenzie, laconically, “gave them all an opportunity to let loose their discontent without reserve.”  Camp after camp they passed, which the old man’s explanations pacified, till they at length came to the carrying place.  Here, to the surprise and delight of all, the guide awaited them.

[Illustration:  Good Hope, Mackenzie River.  Hudson’s Bay Company Fort.]

On July 4, provisions were cached, the canoe abandoned, and a start made overland westward, each carrying ninety pounds of provisions besides musket and pistols.  And this burden was borne on the rations of two scant meals a day.  The way was ridgy, steep, and obstructed by windfalls.  At cloud-line, the rocks were slippery as glass from moisture, and Mackenzie led the way, beating the drip from the branches as they marched.  The record was twelve miles the first day.  When it rained, the shelter was a piece of oil-cloth held up in an extemporized tent, the men crouching to sleep as best they could.  The way was well beaten and camp was frequently made for the night with strange Indians, from whom fresh guides were hired; but when he did not camp with the natives, Mackenzie watched his guide by sleeping with him.  Though the fellow was malodorous from fish oil and infested with vermin, Mackenzie would spread his cloak in such a way that escape was impossible without awakening himself.  No sentry was kept at night.  All hands were too deadly tired from the day’s climb.  Once, in the impenetrable gloom of the midnight forest, Mackenzie was awakened by a plaintive chant in a kind of unearthly music.  A tribe was engaged in religious devotions to some woodland deity.  Totem poles of cedar, carved with the heads of animals emblematic of family clans, told Mackenzie that he was nearing the coast tribes.  Barefooted, with ankles swollen and clothes torn to shreds, they had crossed the last range of mountains within two weeks of leaving the inland river.  They now embarked with some natives for the sea.

One can guess how Mackenzie’s heart thrilled as they swept down the swift river—­six miles an hour—­past fishing weirs and Indian camps, till at last, far out between the mountains, he descried the narrow arm of the blue, limitless sea.  The canoe leaked like a sieve; but what did that matter?  At eight o’clock on the morning of Saturday, July 20, the river carried them to a wide lagoon, lapped by a tide, with the seaweed waving for miles along the shore.  Morning fog still lay on the far-billowing ocean.  Sea otters tumbled over the slimy rocks with discordant cries.  Gulls darted overhead; and past the canoe dived the great floundering grampus.  There was no mistaking.  This was the sea—­the Western Sea, that for three hundred years had baffled all search overland, and led the world’s greatest explorers on a chase of a will-o’-the-wisp.  What Cartier and La Salle and La Verendrye failed to do, Mackenzie had accomplished.