"One morning as I lay in the hut watching my companions as they sat round the fire cooking their mid-day meal, a canoe suddenly came in sight. I started and rubbed my eyes, thinking it a strange illusion, but there before me were the faces of two white men, the first I had seen since that ever-memorable night when my crew deserted me. My companions kept their places before the fire and betrayed not the slightest surprise or fear while I poured out to my new-found friends the story of past years. Captain Franklin offered me a passage in his canoe, and as I took leave of the Indians, and explained that the white men would take me home, they said not a word, but went on smoking their short black pipes as though it were nothing to them." During the course of the evening it was arranged that an important event should take place at no distant date, George and Chrissy to reside at the White House. At the same time Colonel By remarked that it would be an opportune time to lay the corner-stone of the locks. "We could not do better," he said, "than have the ceremony quietly performed by one whose name is a household word on two continents, one who has braved untold peril and hardship in his country's service, not only in the Polar Seas, but at Trafalgar, Copenhagen and New Orleans, one whose name stands for everything that is honorable, self-sacrificing and courageous." "I agree with you," said Mr. MacKay. "Mr. Redpath, Mr. McTaggart and myself were discussing the matter this morning, and decided to suggest to you, sir, that the corner-stone should be laid with some ceremony, and the work is sufficiently advanced to have it done to-morrow." It was finally decided that the ceremony should take place the following day, August 16th, 1827, at 4 p.m. Upon that corner-stone so "well and truly laid" was built a city which, in thirty-one short years, became the capital of a domain nearly three and a half million square miles larger in extent than the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, nearly five hundred thousand square miles larger than the United States, and almost as large as the combined countries of Europe.