re in time to prevent the fire from spreading to our
far-hauled wood. And the explanation was not far to seek. After luncheon
Karstens and the writer had smoked their pipes, and one or the other had
thrown a careless match away that had fallen unextinguished upon the
silk tents that covered the cache. Presently a little wind had fanned
the smouldering fabric into flame, which had eaten down into the pile of
stuff below, mostly in wooden cases. All our sugar was gone, all our
powdered milk, all our baking-powder, our prunes, raisins, and dried
apples, most of our tobacco, a case of pilot bread, a sack full of
woollen socks and gloves, another sack full of photographic films--all
were burned. Most fortunately, the food provided especially for the
high-mountain work had not yet been taken to the cache, and our
pemmican, erbswurst, chocolate, compressed tea, and figs were safe. But
it was a great blow to us and involved considerable delay at a very
unfortunate time. We felt mortification at our carelessness as keenly as
we felt regret at our loss. The last thing a newcomer would dream of
would be danger from fire on a glacier, but we were not newcomers, and
we all knew how ever-present that danger is, more imminent in Alaska in
winter than in summer. Our carelessness had brought us nigh to the
ruining of the whole expedition. The loss of the films was especially
unfortunate, for we were thus reduced to Walter's small camera with a
common lens and the six or eight spools of film he had for it.

[Illustration: Hard work for dogs as well as men on the Muldrow
Glacier.]

[Sidenote: Camping Comfort]

The next day the final move of the main camp was made, and we
established ourselves in the cirque at the head of the Muldrow Glacier,
at an elevation of about eleven thousand five hundred feet, more than
half-way up the mountain. After digging a level place in the glacier and
setting up the tent, a wall of snow blocks was built all round it, and a
little house of snow blocks, a regular Eskimo igloo, was built near by
to serve as a cache. Some details of our camping may be of interest. The
damp from the glacier ice had incommoded us at previous camps, coming up
through skins and bedding when the tent grew warm. So at this camp we
took further precaution. The boxes in which our grub had been hauled
were broken up and laid over the whole portion of the floor of the tent
where our bed was; over this wooden floor a canvas cover was lai