Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/62

40 builder that could equal that canoe carved out of a great cedar tree by the untutored red men?

On the 9th day of May, 1793, the little party left Fort York, pointed their little vessel up stream and was off for the great Pacific. Before them everything was in _ its native wildness; unpolluted streams, untouched forests, and verdant prairies covered with buffalo, elk, deer and antelope. Nothing could have been more exciting or entrancing to these lovers of the woods and waters of our primeval forests. With paddle and pole they propelled their craft up the swift flowing mountain stream day after day against every manner of obstructions and difficulties. Rocks beset their way on every side, beavers dammed the streams, perpendicular cliffs and impassable cataracts compelled them to take boat, provisions and everything from the stream and carry all around obstructions for miles, to gain calm water on upper levels. Rain and thunder storms were frequent, and the men worn out by unexpected and exhaustive toils, openly cursed the expedition with all the anathemas of the whole army in Flanders or any other place. But the great soul of MacKenzie was unmoved. He reminded them of the promise to be faithful and remain with him to the end. He patiently painted in glowing colors the glory of their success — and he opened a fresh bottle and all went merry again—merry as wedding bells.

On the 9th of June, they were nearing the broad flat top of the Rocky mountains in that latitude. They were short of provisions, and had to eat porcupine steaks and wild parsnip salads or starve. Here they found a tribe of wild Indians who' had never seen white men before. They were now surely beyond the limits of all previous explorations. Assured at length of the peaceful intentions of the explorers, the Indians ventured near enough to talk to the interpreters. They exhibited scraps of iron, and pointed to the west. Further efforts elicited from them the fact that their iron had been purchased from Indians further west who lived on a great river, and who had obtained the iron from people who lived in houses on the great sea—white men like these—and who got the iron from ships large as islands that come in the sea. And now we see these children of the forest beset by the white men behind and before — and there is no longer any secret the white men does not find out, and the fateful terrors of these white men have followed them to their land-locked mountain retreat. Terror as it was to the Indian, it was a god-send to MacKenzie. He could now, from these incoherent descriptions of places, rivers, mountains, and marshes, reckon that he could reach the great river, which he at once supposed to be Carver's Oregon or Columbia, in ten or twelve days, and from the great river, reach the sea coast in a month. MacKenzie got the Indian that told him the story to draw a map on a piece of birch bark, which proved to be a very good map of the region to be traversed. The Indian made the river run into an arm of the sea, and not into the great ocean. MacKenzie was sure the Indian was either mistaken or deceiving him. But he was doing neither. MacKenzie did not know of the existence of Frazer river. He did not know of Gray's discovery of the Columbia, but he did know of Carver's reported account of the "Oregon River of the West" running directly into the ocean, and this was the only great river he supposed could exist on the west slope of the Rocky mountains. He recalled Carver's prediction that from the "Height of Land" flowed four great rivers, one the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, another south into the California sea, another north into the icy sea, and the fourth west into the Pacific. MacKenzie had been down the north river to the icy sea, and he was sure he would now go west to the "Oregon River," and find his Indian map maker mistaken.

On the 12th of June, 1793, MacKenzie crossed the narrow divide of the Rocky mountains and found it only eight hundred and seventeen paces (about half a mile) between the headwaters of Peace river and the headwaters of the Frazer. From there on to the Frazer the stream was a succession of torrents, cascades and little lakes, making traveling very bad. But not a word was said