gloves I had ordered from
Fairbanks long before, and so were protected from our chief enemies.
From Moose Creek we went over the hills to Caribou Creek and again were
most kindly welcomed and entertained by Mr. and Mrs. Quigley, and
discussed our climb for a long while with McGonogill of the "pioneer"
party. Then, mainly down the bed of Glacier Creek, now on lingering ice
or snow-drift, with the water rushing underneath, now on the rocks, now
through the brush, crossing and recrossing the creek, we reached the
long line of desolate, decaying houses known as Glacier City, and found
convenient refuge in one of the cabins therein, still maintained as an
occasional abode. On the outskirts of the "city" next morning a moose
and two calves sprang up from the brush, our approach over the moss not
giving enough notice to awake her from sleep until we were almost upon
her.

[Illustration: "Muk," the author's pet malamute.]

[Sidenote: The Boat]

Instead of pursuing our way across the increasingly difficult and swampy
country to the place where our boat and supplies lay cached, we turned
aside at midday to the "fish camp" on the Bearpaw, and, after enjoying
the best our host possessed from the stream and from his early garden,
borrowed his boat, choosing twenty miles or so on the water to nine of
niggerhead and marsh. But the river was very low and we had much trouble
getting the boat over riffles and bars, so that it was late at night
when we reached that other habitation of dragons known as Diamond City.
While we submerged our cached poling boat to swell its sun-dried seams,
Walter and Johnny returned the borrowed boat, and, since the stream had
fallen yet more, were many hours in reaching the fish camp and in
tramping back.

[Sidenote: The Beaver and the Indians]

But the labor of the return journey was now done. A canvas stretched
over willows made a shelter for the centre of the boat, and at noon on
the second day men, dogs, and baggage were embarked, to float down the
Bearpaw to the Kantishna, to the Tanana, to the Yukon. The Bearpaw
swarmed with animal life. Geese and ducks, with their little terrified
broods, scooted ahead of us on the water, the mothers presently leaving
their young in a nook of the bank and making a flying detour to return
to them. Sometimes a duck would simulate a broken wing to lure us away
from the little ones. We had no meat and were hungry for the usual early
summer diet of water-fowl, but no