iles more
to the Hot Springs. But night fell again with a number of miles yet to
come, the recent storm had furrowed the trail diagonally with hard
windrows of snow that overturned the sled repeatedly and formed an
hindrance that grew greater and greater, and again we made camp in the
dark, short of our expected goal.

Of late I had been carrying an hip ring, a rubber ring inflated by the
breath that is the best substitute for a mattress. The ring had been
left behind at Rampart, and so dependent does one grow on the little
luxuries and ameliorations one permits oneself that these two nights in
camp were almost sleepless for lack of it.

[Sidenote: THE HOT SPRINGS]

Three hours more brought us to the spacious hotel, with its forty empty
rooms, that had been put up, out of all sense or keeping, in a wild,
plunging attempt to "exploit" the Hot Springs and make a great "health
resort" of the place. The hot water had been piped a quarter of a mile
or so to spacious swimming-baths in the hotel; all sorts of expense had
been lavished on the place; but it had been a failure from the first,
and has since been closed and has fallen into dilapidation. The bottoms
have dropped out of the cement baths, the paper hangs drooping from the
damp walls, the unsubstantial foundations have yielded until the floors
are heaved like the waves of the sea.[E] But at this time the hotel was
still maintained and we stayed there, and its wide entrance-hall and
lobby formed an excellent place to gather the inhabitants of the little
town for Divine service--again the only opportunity in the year.

What a curious phenomenon thermal springs constitute in these parts!
Here is a series of patches of ground, free from snow, while all the
country has been covered two or three feet deep these four months; green
with vegetation, while all living things elsewhere are wrapped in winter
sleep. Here is open, rushing water, throwing up clouds of steam that
settles upon everything as dense hoar frost, while all other water is
held in the adamantine fetters of the ice. Where does that constant
unfailing stream of water at 110 deg. Fahrenheit come from? Where does it
get its heat? I know of half a dozen such thermal springs in
Alaska,--one far away above the Arctic Circle between the upper courses
of the Kobuk and the Noatak Rivers, that I have heard strange tales
about from the Esquimaux and that I have always wanted to visit.

Whenever I see this gush of hot