cover of canoes, the voyageurs seized their guns and with a peppering shot drove the Indians back. Then they dragged the canoes to water, still keeping under cover of the keel, rolled the boats keel down on the water, tumbled the baggage in helter-skelter and fled abandoning five dead men and the tents. When the raiders carried the booty back to the Missouri they explained to Charles MacKenzie, the Nor’Wester there, that they were sorry they had shot the white traders. It was a mistake. When they fired, they thought it was a Cree camp. From Edmonton was an important trail to Athabasca, ninety miles overland to what is now known as Athabasca Landing on Athabasca River and down stream to Fort Chippewyan on Athabasca Lake. This was the region Peter Pond had found, and when he was expelled for the murder of two men, Alexander MacKenzie came to take his place. Just as the Saskatchewan River was the great artery east and west, so the fur traders of Athabasca now came to a great artery north and south--a river that was to the North what the Mississippi was to the United States. The Athabasca was the south end of this river. The river where it flowed was called the Grand or Big River. Athabasca was seventy days’ canoe travel from the Nor’Westers’ headquarters on Lake Superior. It was Alexander MacKenzie’s duty to send his hunters out, wait for their furs, then conduct the brigades down to Rainy Lake. Laroux and Cuthbert Grant, the plains ranger, were his under officers. When he came back from Lake Superior in ’88, MacKenzie sent Grant and Laroux down to Slave Lake. Then he settled down to a winter of loneliness and began to dream dreams. Where did Big River run beyond Slave Lake? It was a river broader than the St. Lawrence with ramparts like the Hudson. Dreaming of explorations that would bring him renown, he planned to accompany the hunters next year, but who would take his place to go down with the yearly brigades, and what would the other Northwest partners say to these exploring schemes? He wrote to his cousin Rory to come and take his place. As to objections from the partners, he told them nothing about it.