or he is a trader first and a missionary afterwards, in
which case he is not a missionary at all. A clean, sober, and honest
trader, content to take his time about getting rich, is a blessing to an
Indian community. There are some such, one thinks, but they are not
numerous. The profits are large, though the turnover is but one a year;
the capital required is small; it is a life with much leisure; but in
the main it attracts only a certain class of men.

A band of Indians to whom word of our visit had been sent had come down
the river this far to meet us and escort us, but dog food was scarce and
our arrival was delayed, and they had been compelled to return to their
hunting camp whither we must follow them. We were now farther up the
Tanana River than either of us had ever been before; the country had the
fascination of a new country; every bend of the river held unknown
possibilities, and the keenness and elation that only the penetration of
a new country brings were upon the boy as well as upon myself.

The river and the mountains were already drawn much closer together, and
as we pursued our journey upon the one we had continual fine views of
the other. The going was good--too good--for much of it was new ice and
spoke of recent overflow, and all too soon we came upon the water. At
the mouth of the Johnson River, one of the glacial streams, the whole
river was overflowed, and we waded for a mile through water that
deepened continually until there was risk of wetting our load. Then we
were compelled to take to the woods and to cut a portage around the
worst and deepest of it, and so passed beyond it to good ice and to an
empty cabin where we spent the night, glad to be sheltered from an
exceedingly bitter wind that had blown all day and had taken all the
pleasure out of travel.

[Sidenote: THE THERMOS BOTTLES]

It is in such weather particularly that the thermos flasks prove such a
boon to the musher. To stop and build a fire in the wind means to get
chilled through. There is no pleasure in it at all, and I would rather
push on until the day's journey is done. But the native boy must have
his lunch, and will build a fire in any sort of weather and make a pot
of tea. The thermos bottle, with its boiling-hot cocoa, gives one the
stimulation and nourishment that are desired without stopping for more
than a few moments. I have carried a pair of these bottles all day at
60 deg. below zero, and, when opened, snow had t