ey for
the discovery. They build in the spruce-trees, ten or twelve feet above
the ground, a nest of rough twigs, and lay five very small eggs, grey
spotted with black. This, at any rate, is the description that Walter
gives me of a nest he discovered with the bird sitting upon it, and I
have found the boy's accounts of such matters entirely trustworthy. It
is curious, however, that the nest of a bird so common all over Alaska
as the camp-robber should be so rarely found. At times they are very
mischievous and destructive, and the man who builds a careless cache
will often be heard denouncing them, but to my mind a bird who gives us
his enlivening company throughout the dead of an Alaskan winter deserves
what pickings he can get.

[Sidenote: SOFT WEATHER]

On Saturday, the 25th of February, after climbing a rather stiff hill,
we passed temporarily out of Yukon into Kuskokwim waters, for the
tributaries of these two great drainage systems interlock in these
hills. At the foot of the hill we stopped for lunch, a roaring fire was
soon built, and a great cube of beaten snow impaled upon a stake was set
up before the fire to drip into a pan for tea water, while the boys
roasted rabbits. In a few hours more we were on the banks of one of the
tributaries of the East Fork (properly the North Fork) of the Kuskokwim.
Here, in an unoccupied native cabin, we made our camp and lay over
Sunday, and here began the most remarkable spell of weather I have known
in the interior at this season of the year. The thermometer rose to 37 deg.
and then to 40 deg.; the snow everywhere was thawing, and presently it began
to rain steadily. It was the first time I had seen a decided thaw in
February, let alone rain.

Next day the rain turned to snow, but since the thermometer still stood
around 40 deg., the snow melted as it fell, and we were wet through all day.
The snow underfoot, however, was so much less and so much harder that we
were able to proceed without preliminary trail breaking. But it was a
most disagreeable day and the prelude to a more disagreeable night.
Soft, wet snow clings to everything it touches. The dogs are soon
carrying an additional burden; balls of snow form on all projecting
tufts of hair; masses of snow must continually be beaten off the sled.
Every time a snow-shoe is lifted from the ground it lifts a few pounds
of snow with it. One's moccasins and socks are soon wet through, and the
feet, encased in this sodden cold