d
lived farther south had once carried the mails that way. At length we
could stand it no longer, and arranging with four men and two extra
teams, we started off. We hoped to reach the mill in two days, but at
the end of that time we were still trying to push through the tangle
of these close-grown forests. To steer by compass sounded easy, but
the wretched instrument seemed persistently to point to precipitous
cliffs or impenetrable thickets. There were no barren hilltops after
the first twenty miles. Occasionally we would stop, climb a tree, and
try to get a view. But climbing a conifer whose boughs are heavily
laden with ice and snow is no joke, and gave very meagre returns. At
last, however, we struck a high divide, and from an island in the
centre of a lake, occupied only by two lone fir trees, we got a view
both ways, showing the Cloudy Hills which towered over the south side
of the bay in which the mill stood.

A very high, densely wooded hill lay, however, directly in our path;
and which way to get round it best none of us knew. We "tossed up"
and went to the eastward--the wrong side, of course. We soon struck a
river, and at once surmised that if we followed it, it must bring us
to the head of the bay, which meant only three miles of salt water ice
to cover. Alas, the stream proved very torrential. It leaped here and
there over so many rapid falls that great canyons were left in the
ice, and instead of being able to dash along as when first we struck
it, we had painfully to pick our way between heavy ice-blocks, which
sorely tangled up our traces, and our dogs ran great danger of being
injured. Nor could we leave the river, for the banks were precipitous
and utterly impassable with undergrowth. At length when we came to a
gorge where the boiling torrent was not even frozen, and as prospects
of being washed under the ice became only too vivid, we were forced to
cut our way out on the sloping sides. The task was great fun, but an
exceedingly slow process.

It was altogether an exciting and delightful trip. Now we have a good
trail cut and blazed, which after some years of experience we have
gradually straightened out, with two tilts by the roadside when the
weather makes camping imperative, or when delay is caused by having
helpless patients to haul, till now it is only a "joy-ride" to go
through that beautiful country "on dogs." There is always a challenge,
however, left in that trail--just enough to lend tang