ound, with perhaps a score of inhabitants.
Certainly the conditions of life deteriorated as we descended this
river. The country seems to afford nothing but fish; we were amongst the
ichthyophagi pure and simple. Roxy, bred and born on the upper Kobuk and
never so far down before, is very scornful about it. "Me no likee this
country," he says; "no caribou, no ptarmigan, no rabbits, no timber, no
nothin'." The weather had grown raw and cold again, with a constant
disagreeable wind that took all the fun out of travelling. We passed a
place where a white man was pessimistically picking away at a vein of
coal in the river bluff. "Yes, we been here all winter," he said,
"working on the blamed ledge. I always knowed it was goin' to pinch out,
and now it's begun to pinch. My partner's gone to Candle for more grub,
but I told him it weren't no use. It's pinchin' out right now. I knowed
it afore we started work, but the blamed fool wouldn't listen to me.
'It'll pinch out,' I told him a dozen times; 'you mark my word it'll
pinch out,' I told him, and now it's begun to pinch; and I hope he'll be
satisfied." We were reminded of the many coal-mines from time to time
located on the Yukon, in all or nearly all of which the vein has
"pinched out." The deposits on the coast may be all the fancy of the
magazine writer paints, and may hold the "incalculable wealth" that is
attributed to them, but the coal on the interior rivers seems in scant
measure and of inferior quality.

The same night we reached the native village at the mouth of the
Squirrel River, another northern tributary--the Kobuk receives most of
its waters from the north--and we spent the night and the next day,
which was Sunday, in one of the half-underground huts of the place, in
company with twelve other people. Here we found Roxy's brother, dubbed
"Napoleon" by some white man. They had not seen one another for years,
yet all the greeting was a mutual grunt. The Kobuks are not
demonstrative in their affections, but it would not be right to conclude
the affection lacking. I have seen an old Esquimau woman taking part in
a dance the night after her husband was buried, yet it would have been
unjust to have concluded that she was callous and indifferent. It is
very easy to misunderstand a strange people, and very hard to understand
them thoroughly.

[Sidenote: THE CANINE INTRUDER]

The roof of the tent was dome-shaped and it was lit by a seal-gut
skylight. In the morning w