mild."

"I reckon you don't know much about Alaska," the older man remarked.
"When the snow thaws, the creeks overflow, and the rivers become raging
torrents. You can't ride, and if you walk, how are you going to cross a
swollen river, filled with pieces of ice the size of this room? Those
Alaska rivers are huge bodies of water, many of them, and there are no
bridges."

"How about boats?"

"You mean traveling on those ice-filled rivers? It couldn't be done."

"But as soon as the ice goes out?"

"That's pretty well into June, to start with, and then you would have to
pole up against the current all the way, and the currents of most of the
rivers are very swift. Did you ever pole a boat up against a swift
mountain river?--I thought not. Suppose, by very hard work, you could
make two or three miles an hour up stream,--at that rate how long would
it take you to go up to the highest settlement? And then you would have
to go all the way down again and ascend the next stream; and even then
more than half the settlements would be on streams and creeks you could
not get to with boats because of falls, of rapids, of long portages, and
things of that kind."

"I guess they couldn't use a boat," said Hamilton, "but still I don't
see why they couldn't ride!"

"Ride what? Dogs? Or reindeer? I suppose you mean to take a horse up
there?"

"That's what I was thinking of," Hamilton admitted.

"How would you get him up there? Take him in a dog-sled the preceding
winter? You know a horse couldn't travel on the snow like a dog-team.
And if you did get him up to the starting point during the winter, on
what would you feed him? Dried salmon? That's all there is, and while it
makes good enough dog-feed, a horse isn't built that way. There's no
hay-cutting section up there, and your horse would starve to death
before you had a chance to ride him. And even supposing that you could
keep him alive,--I don't believe you could ride him over the tundra
swamps; there is no horse made that could keep his footing on those
marshy tussocks."

"I see you're right," said Hamilton, "I hadn't thought of all that."

The older man continued: "There are horses in the towns of southern
Alaska, because, you know, there is one narrow strip that runs a long
way south, and there the weather is not severe. But the north is
another matter entirely. The pay that you would have to offer in order
to lure the men away from the gold-diggings would be enormous.