ast, ten years later, are the only ones that have
approached their task in this natural and easy way. The others have all
burdened themselves with the great and unnecessary difficulties of the
southern slopes of the range.

[Illustration: Tatum, Esaias, Karstens, Johnny and Walter, at the
Clearwater Camp.]

It was proposed to use the mission launch _Pelican_, which has travelled
close to twenty thousand miles on the Yukon and its tributaries in the
six seasons she has been in commission, to transport the supplies up the
Kantishna and Bearpaw Rivers to the head of navigation of the latter,
when her cruise of 1912 was complete. But a serious mishap to the
launch, which it was impossible to repair in Alaska, brought her
activities for that season to a sudden end. So Mr. Karstens came down
from Fairbanks with his launch, and a poling boat loaded with food
staples, and, pushing the poling boat ahead, successfully ascended the
rivers and carefully cached the stuff some fifty miles from the base of
the mountain. It was done in a week or less.

[Sidenote: Equipment]

Unfortunately, the equipment and supplies ordered from the outside did
not arrive in time to go in with the bulk of the stuff. Although ordered
in February, they arrived at Tanana only late in September, just in time
to catch the last boat up to Nenana. And only half that had been ordered
came at all--one of the two cases has not been traced to this day.
Moreover, it was not until late the next February, when actually about
to proceed on the expedition, that the writer was able to learn what
items had come and what had not. Such are the difficulties of any
undertaking in Alaska, despite all the precautions that foresight may
dictate.

The silk tents, which had not come, had to be made in Fairbanks; the
ice-axes sent were ridiculous gold-painted toys with detachable heads
and broomstick handles--more like dwarf halberds than ice-axes; and at
least two workmanlike axes were indispensable. So the head of an axe was
sawn to the pattern of the writer's out of a piece of tool steel and a
substantial hickory handle and an iron shank fitted to it at the
machine-shop in Fairbanks. It served excellently well, while the points
of the fancy axes from New York splintered the first time they were
used. "Climbing-irons," or "crampons," were also to make, no New York
dealer being able to supply them.

One great difficulty was the matter of footwear. Heavy regulation-nailed