They could afford but one day to enjoy the hospitality of the Indians. From Black lake, the river tumbles in two wild cascades to the level of Lake Athabaska. A series of rapids, cutting through a high hill, warned them that they were approaching the first of the falls. For half a mile they shot the rapids to a point where the river is compressed within a channel only twelve yards in width. At the end of this channel, the current rushed against a projecting ledge of rock with such force that the whole river seemed to be turned up from its bottom. The dashing of the water against the rocks, the deep roar of the torrent, the hollow sound of the fall, in the midst of the dark, high, and frowning hills, made a sight so grand and terrible that Kozdaw and Paddy were awe-struck, and offered their simple tributes to the manito of the fall--the one a bit of tobacco, the other a ring. Past this fall the travellers descended by a well-beaten native trail. A second series of rapids and a second fall brought them to the last lap of their journey, and they paddled quietly for six miles into the east end of Lake Athabaska. Here they passed the night, resting from their dangers, toils, and sufferings under a pine tree which had been lopped and marked by Philip Turnor in his survey of 1791. Thompson's heart was thrilled by the thought that he had finally accomplished the journey on which for the last five years his heart had been set, and that in so doing he had blazed a trail through the wilderness over ground which the feet of white men had never trod before. He was sobered, however, by the prospect of the long and difficult journey home. His net and gun afforded but a scanty supply of food, and should these fail him, there was but slight hope of succour. But gloomy as were his forebodings, it was well that he did not know what lay before him.