tence a man
to death, they don't hang him. They send him down the river in an open
canoe, and give the mosquitos a crack at him!"

"You stated that in the way of an exaggeration," Will Smith suggested,
"but it is the absolute truth, for all that! Men lost among the
nigger-heads have been found later on with their bones picked dry."

"What's a nigger-head?" asked Tommy.

"A nigger-head is a bog," was the reply. "When I say a bog, I don't mean
a swampy hole, either. I mean a grassy knoll sticking up out of a swamp
full of mud. If you keep on the bogs, or nigger-heads, you are
reasonably safe, but if you drop down into the mud, you are likely to go
in over your head."

"How far down does this mud go?" demanded Sandy.

"Down to the ice," replied Will. "This entire country," he went on, "is
lined with ice! Ten or twelve feet below the foundation of this cabin,
the ice is almost as hard as steel. Sometimes the earth-crust over the
ice is a foot thick, and sometimes it is ten feet."

"Are those brilliant flowers growing over a glacier?" asked Tommy,
pointing to a group of violets growing not far away.

"Sure!" replied Will. "If it wasn't for the ice, there wouldn't be any
violets here. The glacier supplies water as well as soil."

"What'd you say about going up to the end of the moraine?" asked Sandy,
joining Tommy at the screened door of the cabin.

"Isn't it quite a climb?" asked Will.

"It isn't so very steep," replied Tommy, "but the way seems to be rather
rocky. I'd like to know where all these round stones come from!"

"They are brought down by the glacier ice and rounded into shape by the
same force which discharges the ice stream into the gulf. There is
always a line of moraine at each side of a glacier, and usually several
ridges in the middle of it. Those at the edge are called lateral
moraines, those in the middle, medial moraines, and those at the end,
terminal moraines. And that's about all I know of Alaska," Will added,
with a smile.

The lads passed up the moraine for some distance, until, in fact, they
came to a point where vegetation became thinner, and hemlocks of smaller
growth. Then they turned toward the west and stood for a long time
watching the yellow glory of the sunset.

But the heat of day passes swiftly in Alaska when the direct rays of the
sun fail, and so the boys were soon glad to return to their cabin, which
they had found standing unoccupied.

"I'd like to know the history of t