er fork of the Tozitna, not more than eight or nine miles from
the cabin where we spent the night and yet thirteen or fourteen miles
from the cabin we had hoped to reach. Beyond the banks of the stream was
no more timber for a long distance; was such another stretch of open
country as we had passed the previous day. So here was another
disappointment, for camp must be made now lest there be no chance to
make camp at all. But it was a good and comfortable camp, amidst the
large spruce of the watercourse. Such disappointments are part of life
on the trail; and supper done there was the more time for the boys.

The open country was again wind-swept, and being wind-swept the snow was
somewhat hardened, and we fought our way against a gale, covering the
twelve and three quarter miles in ten hours, Sunday though it was. At
that last stage on the road to Tanana came out a young man from the
mission with a dog team and an Indian, anxious at our long delay, and
Harry Strangman's name is written here with grateful recognition of this
kindness and many others. We went joyfully into town on the morrow, the
17th of January, having taken fifteen days to make a journey that is
normally made in five.

[Sidenote: THE MAIL-CARRIER]

Half-way on that last day's mush we met the mail-man returning to the
Koyukuk. So much had he been delayed that there was danger of a fine and
all sorts of trouble, and the mail had been sent out to meet him at the
noon cabin, together with a supply of grub for the return trip. But the
caterer, whoever he was, forgot candles, and the mail-man would have had
to make his way back to the Koyukuk without any means of artificial
light, in the shortest days of the year, had we not been able to supply
him with half a dozen candles that remained to us. It was a
disappointment to George, the boy I had brought from the mission, that
he must turn round and go back also. He had never "seen Tanana," which
is quite a metropolis to him, and had looked forward to it keenly all
the journey, but the boy braced up and took his disappointment manfully.
A pitiful procession it was that passed us by and took our boy away; the
poor, wearied dogs that had certainly earned the few days' rest they
were so badly in need of left a trail of blood behind them that was
sickening to see. Almost every one of them had sore, frozen feet; many
of them were lame; and when we came to descend the long hill they had
just climbed, right at its bro