Stepping Westward 23

following year he was engaged in his private venture to
Detroit.

The stormy petrel, Peter Pond, and his friend Peter
Pangman were not included among the partners in the new
company, the first declining to accept the terms, and the
second, for some reason not elucidated, being ignored,
though he was entitled to be included. ‘The pair started off
to Montreal to ally themselves to other interests. Pond, how-
ever, eventually entered the company, Pangman enlisted the
support of Gregory and MacLeod, and the X.Y. Company
was formed to compete with the North-Westers, and the
ancient and honourable company on Hudson Bay, which
was now actively drumming up trade in its hinterland, and
not by any means pleased with the enormous inroads made
upon its preserves by the two younger and more energetic
combinations.

As we have seen, Mackenzie was made a partner in the
X.Y. Company by his old employers, who were influential
members of the new concern and who no doubt relied upon
him largely as a wintering partner to Pepe their affairs
in the Indian country.

Alexander Mackenzie, now a full-fledged bourgeois, was
sent, at the mature age of twenty-two years, with his cousin
Roderick Mackenzie to take charge of the Churchill dis-
trict, which was a very important one until its trade was
reduced by the establishment of posts farther inland. Their
relations with the officials of the older companies were
always friendly, but during its short career the X.Y. Company
made things lively both for the North-West Company and
the Hudson’s Bay Company, and we are assured that the
energetic young Jdourgeois, Alexander Mackenzie, was
chiefly responsible for this spirited challenge.

The killing of Ross by Peter Pond brought about the union
Cc