In fifteen days about three hundred warriors under three chiefs assembled at the rendezvous named by Kootanae Appee, and under his leadership marched through the mountains to within twenty miles of the post. There they awaited the return of their scouts. It was not long before the latter arrived. The Kootenays, they said, were gathering under the white man to fight for the protection of their post. At the same time they presented the chiefs with Thompson's gifts, six feet of tobacco for Kootenae Appee, eighteen inches for each of the lesser chiefs, and a fine pipe of red porphyry with an ornamental stem in which to smoke it. Thompson's knowledge of the Indians was thorough, and in this case, his guess as to their intentions had hit the mark. When the war chiefs heard his message of defiance, they were dumbfounded. "What can we do with this man," they exclaimed, "our women cannot mend a pair of shoes but he sees them" (alluding, of course, to Thompson's astronomical observations). Then the eldest of the three war chiefs, wistfully eyeing the tobacco, of which they had none, observed: "I have attacked tents, my knife could cut through them and our enemies had no defence against us. I am ready to do so again. But to go and fight against logs of wood that a ball cannot pierce, and with people we cannot see and with whom we are at peace, is what I am averse to. I go no further!" So saying, he slowly fitted the pipe to the stem and handed it to Kootenae Appee. Led by Kootenae Appee, they all smoked; and, having accepted Thompson's present, were unable to go further against him. Thus by his own resource and by the support of an old friend won in the days of his service for the Hudson's Bay Company, David Thompson prevented the destruction of the first trading post on the Columbia. With the coming of spring began the work of exploring the country. Leaving McDonald in charge of Kootenay House, Thompson embarked with four voyageurs on the 20th of April, 1807, and paddled through Lake Windermere to the source of the Columbia. From thence, an easy portage of two miles across a grassy plain brought him to a fine stream flowing south, the Kootenay river of today. Launching his canoe, he proceeded to search for Indians.