There was not much said for some minutes. Bad River won a reputation that it has ever since sustained. All the bullets were lost. Powder and baggage had to be fished up and spread out to dry in the sun. One dazed voyageur walked across the spread-out powder with a pipe between his teeth when a yell of warning that he might blow them all to eternity—brought him to his senses and relieved the terrific tension.
The men were treated to a régale, and then sent to hunt bark for a fresh canoe. There now succeeded such an impenetrable morass blocked by windfall that the voyageurs made only two miles a day. Though MacKenzie and McKay watched their guide by turns at night, he succeeded in escaping, and the white men must risk meeting the inland Carriers without an interpreter. On the 15th of June, Bad River turned westward into the Fraser. Of his parley with the Carriers, there is no space to tell. I have told the story in another volume, but somewhere between what are now known as Quesnel and Alexandria—named after him—it became apparent that the river was leading too far south. Besides, the passage was utterly impassable. MacKenzie headed his canoe back up the western fork of the Fraser—the Blackwater River, and thence on July 4th, leaving the canoe and caching provisions, struck overland and westward. The Pacific was reached on the 22nd of July, 1793, in the vicinity of Bella Coola. By the end of August he was back at the Forks on Peace River, and at once proceeded to Chippewyan on Athabasca Lake, where he passed the winter.
CHAPTER XXIV
1780-1810
“THE COMING OF THE PEDLARS” CONTINUED—MACKENZIE AND MCTAVISH QUARREL—THE NOR’WESTERS INVADE HUDSON BAY WATERS AND CHALLENGE THE CHARTER—RUFFIANISM OF NOR’WESTERS—MURDER AND BOYCOTT OF HUDSON’S BAY MEN—UP-TO-DATE COMMERCIALISM AS CONDUCTED IN TERMS OF A CLUB AND WITHOUT LAW.
The next spring, MacKenzie left the West forever. Again his report of discovery was coldly received by the partners on Lake Superior. The smoldering jealousy between Simon McTavish of the old Nor’Westers and Alexander MacKenzie broke out in flame. MacKenzie seceded from the Nor’Westers and with Pierre de Rocheblave and the Ogilvies of Montreal reorganized the Little Company variously known as “The Potties,” from “Les Petits,” and “the X. Y.’s” from the stamp on their pelts, X. Y., to distinguish them from the N. W. MacKenzie’s Journal was published. He was given a title in recognition of his services to the Empire. Now in possession of an independent and growing fortune, he bought himself an estate in Scotland where the fame of his journal attracted the attention of another brilliant young Scotchman—Lord Selkirk. The two became acquainted and talked over plans of forming a vast company, that would include not only the X. Y.’s and Nor’Westers, but the Hudson’s Bay and Russian companies. Hudson’s Bay stock had fallen from £250 to £50 a share. With the aim of a union, MacKenzie and Selkirk began buying shares in the Hudson’s Bay, and Selkirk comes on a visit to Canada.
Meanwhile—out in Canada—Simon McTavish, “the Marquis,” was not idle up to the time of his death. The Hudson’s Bay had barred out other traders from Labrador. Good! Simon McTavish accepted the challenge, and from the government of Canada rented the old King’s Domain of Southern Labrador for £1000 a year. The English company had forbidden interlopers on the waters of Hudson Bay. Good! The Nor’Westers accepted that challenge. Duncan McGillivray, a nephew of McTavish, dictates a letter to the ancient English company begging them to sue him for what he is going to do, so that the case may be forever settled in the courts. Then he hires Captain Richards away from the Company and sends him on the ship Eddystone, in 1803, straight into Hudson Bay, to establish a trading post at Charlton Island and another at Moose for the Nor’Westers. The Hudson’s Bay Company declines the challenge. They will not sue the Northwest Company and so revive the whole question of their charter; but they sue their old Captain, John Richards, and order Mr. Geddes to hire more men in the Orkneys, and they freeze those interlopers out of the bay by bribing the Indians so that Simon McTavish’s men retire from Charlton and Moose with loss. And the English Adventurers go one farther: they petition Parliament, in 1805, for “authority to deal with crimes committed in the Indian country.”
Simon McTavish dies in 1804. The X. Y.’s and the Nor’Westers unite, and well they do, for clashes are increasing between Hudson’s Bays and Nor’Westers, between English and French, from Lake Superior to the Rockies.
Down at Nipigon in 1800, where Duncan Cameron had attracted the Indians away from Albany, first blood is shed. Young Labau, a Frenchman, whose goods have been advanced by the Nor’Westers, deserts for the Hudson’s Bay. Schultz, the Northwest clerk, pursues and orders the young Frenchman back. Labau offers to pay for the goods, but he will not go back to the Northwest Company. Schultz draws his dagger and stabs the boy to death. For this, he is dismissed by the Nor’Westers, but no other punishment follows for the murder.