est places in cold weather; would this hold
as regards mountain tops?--as regards high mountain tops? Probably it
would hold in the sunshine, but the rapid radiation of heat in the
rarefied atmosphere of mountain tops would swing the balance the other
way after dark. There is no doubt, however, that the coldest place in
cold weather in Alaska is the river surface, and it is on the river
surface that most of our travelling is done. The night we returned to
Coldfoot we put our toboggan up high on the roof of an outhouse to keep
its skin sides from the teeth of some hungry native dogs, leaving some
of the load that was not required within it, covered by the sled
cloth. Later on I saw by the light of the moon Lingo's silhouetted
figure sitting bolt upright on top of the sled, and he gave his short
double bark as I drew near to make me notice that he was still doing his
duty although under difficulties. The dog had climbed up a wood-pile and
had jumped to the top of the outhouse and so to the sled. I thought of
Kipling's _Men That Fought at Minden_:

"For fatigue it was their pride
And they would _not_ be denied
To clean the cook-house floor."

Here at Coldfoot we came first into contact with that interesting tribe
of wandering inland Esquimaux known as the Kobuks, from their occupation
of the river of that name. The Koyukuk has its own Indian people, but
these enterprising Kobuks have pushed their way farther and farther from
salt water into what used to be exclusive Indian territory.
Representatives of both races were at Coldfoot, and as we lay
weather-bound for a couple of days, I was enabled to renew last year's
acquaintance with them, though without a good interpreter not much
progress was made. The delight of these people at the road-house
phonograph, the first they had ever heard, was some compensation for the
incessant snarl and scream of the instrument itself. It was very funny
to see them sitting on the floor, roaring with laughter at one
particularly silly spoken record of the "Uncle Josh at the World's Fair"
order. Over and over again they would ask for that record, and it never
ceased to convulse them with laughter. "He's been enjoyin' poor health
lately, but this mornin' I heard him complain that he felt a little
better"--how sick and tired we got of this and similar jokes drawled out
a dozen times running! The natives did not understand a word of it; it
was the human voice with its