Determined not to be beaten, Rousseau attempted a second venture in 1806, this time two canoes under fearless fellows led by one Delorme, who knew the route to the interior. He instructed Delorme to avoid clashing with the Nor’Westers by skirting round their headquarters on Lake Superior, if necessary by traveling at night till beyond detection. Delorme was four days’ march beyond Lake Superior when Donald McKay, a Nor’Wester, suddenly emerged from the underbrush leading a dozen wood-rovers. Not a word was said. No threats. No blustering. This was a no-man’s-land where there was no law and everyone could do as he liked. McKay liked to do a very odd thing just at this juncture, just at this place. His bush-lopers hurried on down stream in advance of Delorme’s canoes and leveled a veritable barricade of trees across the trail. Then they went to the rear of Delorme and leveled another barricade. Delorme didn’t attempt to out-maneuver his rivals. At most he had only sixteen men, and that kind of a game meant a free fight and on one side or the other—murder. He sold out both his cargoes to McKay at prices current in Montreal, and retreated from the fur country, leaving the sardonic Nor’Westers smiling in triumph. These were some of the ways by which the Nor’Westers dissuaded rivals from invading the _Pays d’en Haut_. On their part, they probably justified their course by arguing that rivalry would at once lead to such murders as those in the Athabasca. In their secret councils, they well knew that they were keeping small rivals from the field to be free for the fight against the greatest rival of all—the Hudson’s Bay Company. [Illustration: CHART Showing the Routes of HUDSON and MUNK ] _Footnote to Chapter XX._—The contents of this chapter are taken primarily from the records of the Hudson’s Bay House; secondarily, from the Journals of the Nor’West partners as published by Senator Masson, Prof. Coues, and others; also, and most important, from such old missionary annals as those of the Oblates and other missionaries like Abbé Dugas, Tassé, Grandin, Provencher and others. In the most of cases, the missionary writer was not himself the actor (there are two exceptions to this) but he was in direct contact with the living actor and took his facts on the spot, so that his testimony is even more non-partisan than the carefully edited Masson essay and records. I consider these various missionary legends the most authentic source of the history of the period, though their evidence is most damning to both sides. These annals are exclusively published by Catholic organizations and so unfortunately do not reach the big public of which they are deserving.