it was bitterly cold in the mornings, insufferably hot at
noon, and again bitterly cold toward night. It was a pity we had no
black-bulb, sun-maximum thermometer amongst our instruments, for one is
sure its readings would have been of great interest.

It was a pity, also, that we had no means of making an attempt at
measuring the rate of movement of this glacier--a subject we often
discussed. The carriage of poles enough to set out rows of them across
the glacier would have greatly increased our loads and the time required
to transport them. But it is certain that its rate of movement is very
slow in general, though faster at certain spots than at others, and a
reason for this judgment will be given later.

[Illustration: Bridging a crevasse on the Muldrow Glacier.]

[Sidenote: The Fire on the Glacier]

The midway cache between our first and last glacier camps was itself the
scene of a camp we had not designed, for on the day we were moving
finally forward we were too fatigued to press on to the spot that had
been selected at the head of the glacier, and by common consent made a
halt at the cache and set up the tent there. This is mentioned because
it had consequences. If we had gone through that day and had established
ourselves at the selected spot, a disaster that befell us would, in all
probability, not have happened; for the next day, instead of moving our
camp forward, we relayed some stuff and cached it where the camp would
be made, covering the cache with the three small silk tents. Then we sat
around awhile and ate our luncheon, and presently went down for another
load. Imagine our surprise, upon returning some hours later, to see a
column of smoke rising from our cache. All sorts of wild speculations
flew through the writer's mind as, in the lead that day, he first
crested the serac that gave view of the cache. Had some mysterious
climber come over from the other side of the mountain and built a fire
on the glacier? Had he discovered our wood and our grub and, perhaps
starving, kindled a fire of the one to cook the other? Was there really,
then, some access to this face of the mountain from the south? For it is
fixed in the mind of the traveller in the north beyond eradication that
_smoke_ must mean _man_. But ere we had gone much farther the truth
dawned upon us that our cache was on fire, and we left the dogs and the
sleds and hurried to the spot. Something we were able to save, but not
much, though we we