These heights, which at first appeared inaccessible, were yet traversed by a rough and winding path used by the Indians in their wild hunting expeditions, and, following his dusky guides, Hearne succeeded in scaling them and gaining the plain beyond. Another march of short duration brought him to the source of the Coppermine River, which rises near the Great Bear Lake, a tributary of the Mackenzie, the discovery of which was reserved to Hearne’s rival and successor, whose name it bears. Instead of the wide river navigable for large vessels in the summer, and with mines hiding vast stores of mineral wealth within easy reach, Hearne found the Coppermine to be an unimportant stream flowing through a barren and desolate country. Disappointed and disgusted, he yet resolved to follow it to its mouth, and was proceeding on his journey with dogged resolution, when the monotony of the daily struggle with the difficulties presented by nature was broken by a struggle between his Indian guides and some Esquimaux, resulting in the massacre of the latter. In vain did our hero plead for mercy for the inoffensive dwellers on the coast. The inland races of North America entertain for their Arctic neighbors a hatred and contempt which must be witnessed to be realized; and face to face with Esquimaux, all private quarrels are merged in an eager desire for the blood of the common enemy. Disgusted at having burdened himself with companions who of course rendered impossible any attempt at studying the ways of the new type of human nature with which he was now brought in contact, Hearne pursued his way northward, and before the close of the summer he was rewarded for his perseverance by reaching the mouth of the Coppermine River, and standing on the shores of the Arctic Ocean. For the first time the eyes of a European rested upon that portion of the universal sea surrounding the North Pole which washes the northern coast of America; for the first time the white man realized the existence of yet another ocean――an ocean which must henceforth replace the fabulous unbroken masses of land figuring on all maps between the most northerly limit reached by explorers and the North Pole. Illustration: IN THE ARCTIC SEAS.