ornuchaket much more snow had fallen, and a few miles
brought us to Moses' Village, called grandiosely "Arctic City," since a
trader had established a store and a road-house there. At this spot a
new overland mail trail from Tanana strikes the Koyukuk, and, although
ten or twelve miles remained, we felt that our journey was done. My sled
dogs were there, and, as I had not seen them for more than a year, that
was a joyful reunion. Nanook's bark of welcome, which no one but I ever
got with quite the same inflection, was as grateful to me as all the
licking and slobbering of the others, for Nanook is a very independent
beast, reserved in his demonstrations and not wearing his heart on his
sleeve, so to speak. They were all glad to see me--Old Lingo and Nig,
and even "Jimmy the Fake." Billy was dead. For fifteen or sixteen months
they had been boarded here, and, since fish had been very scarce the
preceding summer, their food had been chiefly bacon and rice and tallow,
and there was a bill of close to four hundred dollars against us! Dogs
are very expensive things in this expensive country. When used the
winter through on the trail, and boarded the summer through at a fish
camp, we estimate that it costs one hundred dollars per head per annum
to feed a dog; so that the maintenance of a team of five dogs, which is
the minimum practicable team, will cost five hundred dollars per annum
for food alone.

[Sidenote: SATURATED SNOW]

When we had eaten a good supper and were reclining on spring cots in the
bunk house, there was not one of us but confidently expected to be at
the mission in the next forenoon. For a week past the natives had been
going to and fro in three or four hours. The river was completely closed
above here, and there was much more snow than we found below. So we
hitched our own dogs to our own sled the next morning, when the doctor
had visited a sick person or two, and started out on the last stretch
of the journey. All went well until we had turned the long bend at the
head of which the old, abandoned post of Bergman is situated, just on
the Arctic Circle, but a mile or two beyond we were wallowing in
saturated snow that stretched all across the river right up to the banks
on either side. An overflow was in progress, the water running along the
surface of the ice and soaking up the snow so that there was six inches
of slush all over it. We struggled along awhile, though from the first
it seemed hopeless, and