Traders bound for Slave
Lake followed behind. Only fifty miles were made the first day.
Henceforth Mackenzie embarked his men at three and four in the morning.
[Illustration: Quill and Bead Work on Buckskin, Mackenzie River
Indians.]
The mouth of Peace River was passed a mile broad as it pours down from
the west, and the boatmen _portaged_ six rapids the third day, one of
the canoes, steered by a squaw more intent on her sewing than the
paddles, going over the falls with a smash that shivered the bark to
kindling-wood. The woman escaped, as the current caught the canoe, by
leaping into the water and swimming ashore with the aid of a line. Ice
four feet thick clung to the walls of the rampart shores, and this
increased the danger of landing for a _portage_, the Indians whining
out their complaints in exactly the tone of the wailing north wind that
had cradled their lives--"Eduiy, eduiy!--It is hard, white man, it is
hard!" And harder the way became. For nine nights fog lay so heavily
on the river that not a star was seen. This was followed by driving
rain and wind. Mackenzie hoisted a three-foot sail and cut over the
water before the wind with the hiss of a boiling kettle. Though the
sail did the work of the paddles, it gave the _voyageurs_ no respite.
Cramped and rain-soaked, they had to bail out water to keep the canoe
afloat. In this fashion the boats entered Slave Lake, a large body of
water with one horn pointing west, the other east.
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