34 Mackenzie’s Voyages

by, and all was excitement among the onlookers. Indian
hunters crowded to the water’s edge, eyeing the canoes
and equipment with the appraising scrutiny of men experi-
enced in the requirements of the wilds. Their women
edged nearer, smiling broadly at the unwonted thing happen-
ing in their midst. This was a stirring event, and their
excitement took the form of child-like wonder. All, however,
instinctively left a lane for the passage of ““Kitche Okema,”
the most powerful human creature they had yet seen, who
moreover regarded them with a friendly if sometimes stern
eye, as a father might his children. Shy youngsters became
momentarily bolder, scrambling from the rear to places of
vantage. Among them were several who were keener and
more attractive in appearance and decidedly more aggres-
sive. These children of Indian mothers, distinctively showing
French and Scottish characteristics, pushed the others aside
and gazed at the men of the expedition with a spirit of
camaraderie.

Each of the spectators felt in some degree that he was
sharing in an important enterprise, for it was common
knowledge that Kitche Okema and his party were bound
on a great quest to a new country, where furs were as
plentiful in the woods as the water-fowl were in the shallows
at the western end of the lake.

The wvoyageurs, always ready enough to make every occa-
sion a festive one, had not been favoured with more than a
moderate amount of rum, otherwise there would have been
a delay until they sobered up. As it was, they were in fine
fettle. Each man had responded, when Le Roux shouted
the word, by grabbing his own private paddle and getting
into his place in the canoes.

Mackenzie appeared, coming down with quick strides,
abstracted in manner, and yet with that half-smile of the