rogress, and in a short time
reached the end of the portage and came out on the frozen river, just as
the moon, a day or two past the full, rose above the opposite bank. One
sees many strange distortions of sun and moon in this land, but never
was a stranger seen than this. Her disk, shining through the dense air
of the river bottom, was in shape an almost perfect octagon, regular as
though it had been laid off with dividers and a ruler.

We were soon in doubt about the trail. The mail-carrier had gone down
only two or three times this winter and each time had taken a different
route, as more and more of the river closed and gave him more and more
direct passage. A number of Indians had been hunting, and their tracks
added to the tangle of trails. Presently we entered a thick mist that
even to inexperienced eyes spoke of open water or new ice yet moist. So
heavy was the vapour that to the man at the handle-bars the man at the
gee pole loomed ghostly, and the man ahead of the dogs could not be
distinguished at all. We had gone so much farther than our native boy
had declared we had to go that we began to fear that in the confusion of
trails we had taken the wrong one and had passed the cabin. That is the
tenderfoot's, or, as we say, the chechaco's, fear; it is the one thing
that it may almost be said never happens. But the boy fell down
completely and was frankly at a loss. All we could get out of him was:
"May-be-so we catch cabin bymeby, may-be-so no." If we had passed the
cabin it was twenty odd miles to the next; and it grew colder and the
dogs were utterly weary again, prone upon the trail at every small
excuse for a stop, only to be stirred by the whip, heavily wielded.
Surely never men thrust themselves foolhardily into worse predicament!
Then I made my last mistake. Dimly the bank loomed through the mist, and
I said: "We can't go any farther; I think we've missed the trail and I'm
going across to yon bank to see if there's a place to camp." I had not
gone six steps from the trail when the ice gave way under my feet and I
found myself in water to my hips.

[Sidenote: AN ESCAPADE ON THE YUKON]

Under Providence I owe it to the mukluks I wore, tied tight round my
knees, that I did not lose my life, or at least my feet. The thermometer
at Circle City stood at 60 deg. below zero at dark that day, and down on the
ice it is always about 5 deg. colder than on the bank, because cold air is
heavy air and sinks to the low