that covers one hundred unnecessary
miles--for no other reason than to deprive Lewis of the legitimate fruit
of his enterprise.

The character of the country changed so soon as the Innoko was crossed;
the wide swamps gave place to a broken, light-timbered country of ridges
and hollows, and the rough, laborious, horse-ruined trail across it made
bad travelling. "Buckskin Bill," with his cayuses, was also engaged in
"moving the meat." The measured miles, moreover, gave place to estimated
miles, and the nominal twenty-five we made the first day was probably
not much more than twenty.

[Sidenote: MILLINERY]

The first fifty miles of the country between the Innoko and the Yukon is
much the same, and we were climbing and descending ridges for a couple
of days. Then we crossed a high ridge and dropped out of Innoko waters
into the valley of the Yukatna, a tributary of the Yukon, and passed
down this valley for thirty or forty miles, and then across some more
broken country to the Yukon. At one of the road-houses a woman was
stopping, going in with three or four large sled loads of millinery and
"ladies' furnishings." We were told that the merchandise had cost her
twelve thousand dollars in Fairbanks, and that she expected to realise
thirty thousand dollars by selling it to the "sporting" women of the
Iditarod, now a whole winter debarred from "the latest imported French
fashions." This woman was dressed in overalls, like a man, and the
drivers of her teams, two white men and a native, cursed and swore and
used filthy language to the dogs in her presence. It always angers me to
hear an Indian curse; to hear one curse in the presence of a white woman
was particularly disgusting and exasperating; but what could one expect
when the white men put no slightest restraint upon themselves and the
woman seemed utterly indifferent? I called the Indian aside and spoke
very plainly to him, and he ceased his ribaldry; but the white men still
poured it out as they struggled to hitch their many dogs. At last I
could stand it no longer. "Madam," I said to the woman, "I don't know
who you are, save that you are a white woman, and as a white woman,
if I were you, I would make those blackguards treat me with more respect
than to use such language before me." She flushed and made no reply. The
men, who heard what I said, scowled and made no reply. Presently
dispositions were done and the train moved off, but I did not hear any
more foul langua