Over the Divide seems i 5

the lack of food, and their anxieties all added to the dis-
agreeableness of the situation. Returning to their companions
at the spot where they had fired the first two shots, it was
found that they had been three or four miles down the river
without having discovered any traces of the canoe.

Mackenzie feared the worst, and his mind was in a state
of extreme agitation. He reproached himself for leaving his
people, saying that “it was an act of indiscretion which might
have put an end to the voyage that I had so much at heart.”

Mackay and Cancre were instructed to go down the river
as far as they could that night, and continue next day to their
last camp, while Mackenzie and the other hunter returned
up-river to prosecute their search in that direction. While
preparing a bed of branches a shot was heard and presently
another, which were followed by two others more distant.
Mackenzie was in a state of physical distress from his
violent exertions, from the lack of food, and an undue
consumption of cold water, and was not inclined to stir
from his improvised camp. The Indian, however, com-
plained so bitterly of cold and hunger that Mackenzie at last
complied with his companion’s solicitations, which no doubt
was the best thing he could do, and both proceeded wearily
down-stream, reaching the canoe by dark, barefooted and
drenched with rain.

‘“‘But these inconveniences affected me very little when I
saw myself once more surrounded with my people.” “They
had broken the canoe, and their day had been more strenuous
than any they had yet experienced. Mackenzie seems to
have had his doubts about the truth of their assertions. He
suspected that they had virtually taken it into their heads
to loiter, perhaps to mature some plan to compel his return
to that distant fort on the Peace which, in the midst of these
difficulties and with a prospect of months of similar grinding