tered an ice-jam which took an hour of heavy work to cross. At
last Daylight glimpsed what he was looking for, a dead tree close by
the bank. The sled was run in and up. Kama grunted with satisfaction,
and the work of making camp was begun.

The division of labor was excellent. Each knew what he must do. With
one ax Daylight chopped down the dead pine. Kama, with a snowshoe and
the other ax, cleared away the two feet of snow above the Yukon ice and
chopped a supply of ice for cooking purposes. A piece of dry birch
bark started the fire, and Daylight went ahead with the cooking while
the Indian unloaded the sled and fed the dogs their ration of dried
fish. The food sacks he slung high in the trees beyond leaping-reach
of the huskies. Next, he chopped down a young spruce tree and trimmed
off the boughs. Close to the fire he trampled down the soft snow and
covered the packed space with the boughs. On this flooring he tossed
his own and Daylight's gear-bags, containing dry socks and underwear
and their sleeping-robes. Kama, however, had two robes of rabbit skin
to Daylight's one.

They worked on steadily, without speaking, losing no time. Each did
whatever was needed, without thought of leaving to the other the least
task that presented itself to hand. Thus, Kama saw when more ice was
needed and went and got it, while a snowshoe, pushed over by the lunge
of a dog, was stuck on end again by Daylight. While coffee was
boiling, bacon frying, and flapjacks were being mixed, Daylight found
time to put on a big pot of beans. Kama came back, sat down on the
edge of the spruce boughs, and in the interval of waiting, mended
harness.

"I t'ink dat Skookum and Booga make um plenty fight maybe," Kama
remarked, as they sat down to eat.

"Keep an eye on them," was Daylight's answer.

And this was their sole conversation throughout the meal. Once, with a
muttered imprecation, Kama leaped away, a stick of firewood in hand,
and clubbed apart a tangle of fighting dogs. Daylight, between
mouthfuls, fed chunks of ice into the tin pot, where it thawed into
water. The meal finished, Kama replenished the fire, cut more wood for
the morning, and returned to the spruce bough bed and his
harness-mending. Daylight cut up generous chunks of bacon and dropped
them in the pot of bubbling beans. The moccasins of both men were wet,
and this in spite of the intense cold; so when there was no further
need for them to leave the oasis