reters in the country is also so
phlegmatic in disposition, so lifeless and monotonous in his speech, and
particularly so impassive of countenance, that he reminds one of
Napoleon's saying about Talleyrand: that if some one kicked him behind
while he was speaking to you his face would give no sign of it at all.

[Sidenote: CHENA AND FAIRBANKS]

It is not necessary to write much detail of the two-hundred-mile journey
to Fairbanks up the Tanana River. The trail was then wholly on the
river, but now it has been taken wholly off, as every Alaskan musher
hopes some day will be done with all trails. The region about the mouth
of the river and for some miles up is one of the windiest in the
country, and there is always troublesome crossing of bare sand-bars and
of ice over which sand has been blown. The journey hastens to its close;
men and dogs alike realise it, and push on willingly over longer stages
than they had before attempted.

Two days from Tanana we were luxuriating in the natural hot springs near
Baker Creek, wallowing in the crude wooden vat, when "Daddy Karstner"
had shovelled enough snow in to make entering the water possible, and
emerging ruddy as boiled lobsters. It was a beautiful and interesting
spot then, with noble groves of birch and the finest grove of
cottonwood-trees in Alaska--all cut down now--all ruined in a plunging
and bounding and quite unsuccessful attempt to make a "Health Resort" of
the place for the "smart set" of Fairbanks. It is a scurvy trick of
Fortune when she gives large wealth to a man with no feeling for trees.
We spent Sunday there and roamed over the curious domain, snow-free
amidst all the surrounding snow, rank in vegetation amidst the
yet-lingering winter death; and then we wallowed again.

Tolovana, Nenana, and then one long run of fifty-four miles, the longest
and last run of the winter, and--Chena and Fairbanks. But just before we
reached Chena, as we passed the fish camp where the dogs had been
boarded the previous summer, Nanook stopped the whole team, looked up at
the bank and gave utterance to his pronounced five barks on the
descending scale. None of the other dogs seemed to notice or recognise
the place, but Nanook said as plainly as if he had uttered speech:
"Well, well! there's where I spent last summer!"

We reached Fairbanks on the 11th of April, in time for Good Friday and
Easter, after an absence of four months and a half--with the accumulated
mail of all that