her was
warm--too warm for good travelling--the thermometer standing at 15--- deg.,
20 deg., and one day even 30 deg. above zero all day long, so that we were all
bareheaded and in our shirt-sleeves. From time to time, as the course of
the river varied, we had distant views of the rocky mountains of the
Endicott Range, or, as it might be written, the Endicott Range of the
Rocky Mountains, for such, in fact, it is--the western and final
extension of the great American cordillera. On the other side of those
mountains was the Noatak River, flowing roughly parallel with the Kobuk,
and discharging into the same arm of the sea.

The division of the labour of camping amongst four gave us all some
leisure at night, and I found time to read through again _The Cloister
and the Hearth_ and _Westward Ho!_ with much pleasure, quite agreeing
with Sir Walter Besant's judgment that the former is one of the best
historical novels ever written. There are few more attractive roysterers
in literature to me than Denys of Burgundy, with his "_Courage,
camarades, le diable est mort!_" This matter of winter reading is a
difficult one, because it is impossible to carry many books. My plan is
to take two or three India-paper volumes of classics that have been read
before, and renew my acquaintance with them. But reading by the light of
one candle, though it sufficed our forefathers, is hard on our
degenerate eyes.

The days were much lengthened now, and the worst of the winter was
done. There would still be cold and storm, but hardly again of the same
intensity and duration. When the traveller gets well into February he
feels that the back of the winter is broken, for nothing can take from
him the advantage of the ever-lengthening days, the ever-climbing sun.

On the afternoon of the third day on the Kobuk we reached a cabin
occupied by two white men, the first we had seen since we left Bettles,
and we were the first white men they had seen all the winter. They were
waiting for the spring, having a prospecting trip in view; simply
spending the winter eating up their grub. There was nothing whatever to
read in the cabin, and they had been there since the freeze-up! They
welcomed us, and we stayed overnight with them, and that night there was
a total eclipse of the moon, of which we had a fine view. We had an
almanac which gave the time of totality at Sitka, and we knew the
approximate longitude of our position, so we were able to set our
watch