"Yes," said Rob, "and there wasn't any Fraser River known by that name at that time. They all thought it was the Columbia River, which it wasn't by a long way. But Sir Alexander stuck it out, don't you see. He was a great man, or he couldn't have done it. I take off my hat to him, that's what I do."
And in his enthusiasm, Rob did take off his hat, and his young companions joined him, their eyes lighting with enthusiasm for the man the simple story of whose deeds had stirred their young blood.
Alex looked on approvingly. "He was of my family," said he. "Perhaps my great-grandfather--I don't know. He was a good man in the woods. You see, he went far to the north before he came here--he followed the Mackenzie River to its mouth in the Arctic Sea. Then he thought there must be a way across to the Pacific. Some one told him about the Peace River. That's how he came to make the first trip over the mountains here. By rights the Fraser River ought to have been named after him, too, because he was the first to see it."
"But he wasn't the first to run it on out," said John, who also had a good idea of the geography hereabouts, which he had carefully studied in advance. "It was Simon Fraser did that first."
"Yes, they'll both been good man, heem," said Moise, his mouth full of bacon. "My wife, she'll had an onkle once name Fraser an' he'll been seex feet high an' strong like a hox--those Fraser, yes, heem."
"They must have been strong men," said Alex, "and brave men as well."
"Their worst time was getting west of here, wasn't it?" asked John.
"Yes," answered Rob. "The book says that when they tried to get down the Fraser they had a terrible time. Sometimes they had to carry their canoe through swamps and over hills. No wonder the men mutinied. Why, they lost all their bullets, and got everything they had wet. The men almost lost heart."
Moise nodded. "I'll onderstan' that," said he. "Sometime man get tired."
"But you see now, Moise, why we wanted to come down here and go over this same ground and not to take the easy portage trail into Lake McLeod."
"All same to me," smiled Moise. "I'll don' care."
"Of course, if we wanted to go through the easiest way," assented Rob, "it would be simpler to go up through McLeod Lake. But you see, that's something of a way above here. Finlay found that lake after Mackenzie came across, and they had a fort up there when Fraser came through eighteen years later. The Indians used to come to that fort and tell about the salt water somewhere far to the west. They had brass and iron which they had got of white men somewhere on the Pacific--that was more than a hundred years ago. Fraser wanted to get across to the Pacific, but he followed the old Mackenzie trail across here. He started at the Rocky Mountain portage and went up into McLeod Lake, and stopped there for a while. But he didn't start west and northwest, by way of Stuart Lake. Instead of that, he followed Mackenzie's journal, just as we're doing. He came into the little creek which leads into these lakes--where we'll go down pretty soon. He came right across this lake, not a mile from where we're sitting. Then he met Indians in here, who told him--just as Moise has told us--that the best and easiest way to get across would have been by way of McLeod Lake--the very place he had come from."