er, containing Wild Goose Company machinery, and the
boats of several others, who were also going up the rivers. My brother
steered the barge, and C---- our boat, according to instructions from
the captain. T---- and I, who felt used up, lounged on some sacks near
the warm engine. After running upon and backing off various mud-flats,
at midnight the _Arctic Bird_ rested at the delta of the Fish River, and
all hands drank coffee, and the whisky which represented our fare. It
was, of course, daylight,--a weird, grayish effect,--and fairly, but not
disagreeably, cold. Then we entered and pushed slowly up the swift and
shallow stream, the mosquitos, for the first time in our wanderings to
date, making themselves manifest and felt. All of us had the same
thought and sensations. For the first time there was a semblance of
"God's country." The beautifully clear stream,--flanked on each side by
scrub willows and an occasional small spruce-tree,--whose tempting water
one could dip up and drink _ad libitum_, seemed in places filled with
fish, darting swiftly about above the gravel bed. Hills that appeared
more like mountains loomed up in the distance, gray in the early light.
There was the inevitable tundra, of course, but it seemed less
all-pervading--it had finally met with some competition.

There were many curves and sharp turns where the boats in tow would have
been wrecked but for the men who, wrapped in their sweaters and coats,
steered them. Many times the _Arctic Bird_ would run upon a riffle
(where the water runs very shallow over the gravel), to be temporarily
baffled and obliged to back off and seek another course. The stream
averaged hardly two feet in depth. Frequently the fraction of an inch
meant progress or failure. When in plain sight and almost in reach of
White Mountain, that fraction of an inch was not in our favor, and it
being then three o'clock in the morning, anchor was thrown out, and all
hands turned in to await the coming of the tide below, the crew pulling
out their mattresses, and the "cheechawkers" (the Eskimo name for
newcomers, universally used in Alaska) conforming their shapes to the
various sacks and baggage. By noon we were disembarked and camped at
White Mountain, a few feet from the river. Our "library" of law books
seemed to weigh a ton. This was the best camping-spot yet. The scene was
pretty; it seemed a healthful place; and water, plentiful and good, was
very near at hand. But the mosquit