been told that it emptied into a great body of salt water upon
the shores of which lived many people. We may be sure that La
Verendrye read into the words of the savage the meaning which he
himself desired and that in reality the Indian was describing
only the waters which flow into Lake Winnipeg.

La Verendrye was all eagerness. Soon we find him back at Quebec
stirring by his own enthusiasm the zeal of the Marquis de
Beauharnois, the Governor of Canada, and begging for help to pay
and equip a hundred men for the great enterprise in the West. The
Governor did what he could but was unable to move the French
court to give money. The sole help offered was a monopoly of the
fur trade in the region to be explored, a doubtful gift, since it
angered all the traders excluded from the monopoly. La Verendrye,
however, was able, by promising to hand over most of the profits,
to persuade merchants in Montreal to equip him with the necessary
men and merchandise.

There followed a period of high hopes and of heartbreaking
failure. In 1731 La Verendrye set out for the West with three
sons, a nephew, a Jesuit priest, the Indian Ochagach as guide--a
party numbering in all about fifty. He intended to build
trading-posts as he went westward and to make the last post
always a base from which to advance still farther. His
difficulties read like those of Columbus. His men not only
disliked the hard work which was inevitable but were haunted by
superstitious fears of malignant fiends in the unknown land who
were ready to punish the invaders of their secrets. The route lay
across the rough country beyond Lake Superior. There were many
long portages over which his men must carry the provisions and