"O Young Mariner,
Down to the harbor call your companions,
Launch your vessel, and crowd your canvas,
And, ere it vanishes over the margin,
After it. Follow it. Follow the Gleam!"
We have not time to recount the chapters of the story, to name the streams ascended, the boiling gorges passed, the discontent allayed, the encouragement given, the lonely night-watches when the leader himself looked for comfort to his new-found stars. The Fraser was discovered, traced for a while; and then, striking westward, Mackenzie heard the beat of the surf upon the rocks, and came out from among the pines to the silver Pacific sparkling in the sun. It was a sweet day in summer's prime, and as the gulls cried overhead and the sun mixed scent of seaweed with balsam breath from in-shore, we can imagine but not divine the feelings of that brave man who had thrown himself face-downward on the sand and from whose presence the awed companions stole silently away. We remember the words of another builder of Empire,—
"Anybody might have found it,
But God's whisper came to me."