Original - North Central Michigan College Library

to enter our house during all the night. I sayall the night because it was in the course ofthis night, the next day, and the night following,that our traffic was pursued and finished.The Indians delivered their skins at a smallwindow made for that purpose, asking at thesame time for the different things they wishedto purchase, and of which the prices had beenpreviously settled with the chiefs. Of thesesome were higher than those quoted from Fortdes Prairies.On the third morning this little fair wasclosed, and on making up our packs we foundthat we had purchased twelve thousand beaverskins, besides large numbers of otter andmarten.Our customers were from Lake Arabuthcow,of which and the surrounding country theywere the proprietors, and at which they hadwintered. They informed us that there was atthe farther end of that lake a river, called72Peace River, which descended from the Stonyor Rocky Mountains, and from which mountainsthe distance to the salt lake, meaning thePacific Ocean, was not great; that the lakeemptied itself by a river which ran to the north-72Henry was on the eve of making a great discovery,for the Peace River was first explored by AlexanderMackenzie in 1792. It takes its name, according toMackenzie from Peace Point, a place where a treaty wasconcluded between the Christinaux and the BeaverIndians. Editor.312