way across the River, and desperate as the attempt seemed, he resolved to pick his way along the reef to a point whence he might swim to the other shore. It was his only chance for life. Fearful as were the odds, the daring lad accomplished his aim. He emerged on the further end of the reef. Looking around, he discovered that his comrade had not possessed the nerve to follow. And then,--most wonderful of all,--back he went to assist his more timid fellow. In this, too, he succeeded, and after a return in which they should have been drowned a dozen times, they both reached the farther end of the reef. There casting themselves again into the inhospitable flood, they buffeted their way to shore. Battered, bruised, exhausted, they yet recovered and lived to a good old age to tell the tale of their fight with the Columbia River. From the Cascades to Vancouver, the company suffered more than in all the rest of their journey. The fall rains were at hand, and it poured with an unremitting energy such as no one can realise who has not seen a rain storm on the lower River. Food had become almost exhausted. Clothing was in rags. Tired, hungry, wet, cold, disheartened, the immigrants who had so jauntily descended the River to this "Strait of Horrors," presented a most woful appearance. It actually seemed that many must perish. But in the crisis, help came. One of the party managed to procure a canoe and hastened down the River to Fort Vancouver. As soon as Dr. McLoughlin learned that nearly nine hundred men, women, and children were beleaguered in the mist and chill, he equipped boats with flour, meat, and tea, and in his choleric excitement, waving his huge cane, bade the boatman hurry to the rescue. It was not business for the good Doctor to thus aid and abet American immigrants, and the directors of the Hudson's Bay Company and the cold-blooded Sir George Simpson, Governor-in-chief, disapproved. But it was humanity, and that ever predominated in the mind of "Old Whitehead." The next night he caused vast bonfires to be alight along the bank, and gathered all the eatables and blankets that the place afforded. When the boat loads of the battered, but rescued Americans drew near, the Doctor was on the bank to meet them, to hand out the women and children, to administer the balm of cheery words and warmth and food. Few were the travellers on the River, none were the immigrants of '43, who would not rise up and call him blessed.