Where the Saskatchewan empties into Lake Winnipeg are rough ledges of rock known as Grand Rapids. Here, it was usual to lighten loads, passengers landing to walk across the portage, the voyageurs running the canoes down full swirl to a camp below the rapids. Robertson knew that Williams, the Hudson’s Bay governor from Red River, would be waiting for the Northwest brigade at this point. Barely had his captors’ canoes paddled away from Cumberland House, when Robertson launched out on their trail far enough behind to escape notice, bound for the exciting rendezvous of Grand Rapids. “In paddling along,” he writes, “we were suddenly interrupted with a shout ‘Canoe ahead!’... A shot was fired.... We arranged our pistols. The canoe was plainly approaching us. What shall be done? If these are enemies, the water is the safest place for defense. It was a moment of anxiety. As the canoe came nearer, a stranger stood up, waved his hat and shouted, ‘Glorious news! Five North-West partners captured at Grand Rapids--Shaw, McIntosh, Campbell, McTavish and Frobisher taken! I am sent to meet Mr. Robertson!’ We at once shaped our course to the canoe when our voyageurs struck up a song the men of both canoes yelling a cheer at each chorus.” At eleven on the morning of July 30th, Robertson crossed the portage of Grand Rapids. He found himself in the midst of a stirring scene. Strung across the river at the foot of the rapids were barges mounted with swivels. On the bank lay the entire year’s output of Athabasca furs, the poor French voyageurs huddling together, the loudest bully cowed; and apart from the camp in the windowless lodge of an old French hunter, were the captured Northwest partners surrounded by the guard of a hundred De Meuron soldiers under Governor Williams. This was a turning of the tables with a vengeance. As Williams blurted out in a gasconade striding forward to welcome Robertson, “two could play at the capturing business.” And a sorry thing “the capturing business” proved. Robertson does not give any details. He is evidently both ashamed of the episode and sorry; but the account is found in the journals of the Nor’Westers. Anxious to rescue Robertson, the Hudson’s Bay governor had his barges strung across the river and his soldiers in ambush along the trail of the portage, when the unsuspecting Athabasca brigade, laden with furs to the water line, glided down the Saskatchewan. The canoes arrived in three detachments on the 18th, and 20th, and 30th of June. Rapids behind and pointed swivels before, the voyageurs were easy victims, surrendering to the soldiers at once. It was another matter with the partners. Both Hudson’s Bay and Nor’Westers knew these lawless raids would be condemned by the courts; but each side also knew if it could capture and hold the other out of the Athabasca for a single year, the excluded rival would be ruined.