146 Mackenzie’s Voyages

great risk to the men engaged in this task. Murmurs were
rife, but Mackenzie took no notice of them.

The guide was a valuable member of the party, and
Mackenzie had been in the habit of sitting up half the night
to watch him, Mackay taking the other half of the vigil.
On Monday night Mackay’s vigilance relaxed and the
guide escaped, whereupon Mackenzie was wroth with his
lieutenant, whom he sent off with Cancre the Crab and the
dog in a fruitless search for the fugitive.

Moving by land and by water alternately all the next day,
they finally arrived in the evening at the bank of the Great
River. “At length we enjoyed, after all our toil and anxiety,
the inexpressible satisfaction of finding ourselves on the
banks of a navigable river on the west side of the first great
range of mountains.” Here on the morning of 18 June,
Mackenzie indulges his men in a well-earned rest until seven
in the morning, at which late hour they prepared to embark.

The Great River, after all, proved to be only a branch of
the north fork two hundred yards wide, but in the afternoon
they emerged upon the Fraser proper where it was half a
mile wide.!

They were now able to make rapid progress. From time
to time fires were seen, indicating the presence of natives.
The Nechaco was not observed, and if noticed at all, it must
have been mistaken for the lower end of a channel on the
far side of an island. ‘he canyon ? below the junction of the
Nechaco made it necessary to portage. “The labour and
fatigue of this undertaking from eight till twelve beggars
all description, when we at length conquered this afflicting
passage of about half a mile over a rocky and most rugged
hill.” Another short carrying-place occurred just below,

1 For a surveyor’s description of Bad River, see Appendix B.
Fort George Canyon, sixteen miles below Prince George.