ghly tired.

[Sidenote: TRAVELLING BY NIGHT]

A mile beyond Fort Hamlin the Ramparts suddenly cease and the wide
expanse of the Yukon Flats opens at once. Ten miles or so brought us to
Stephen's Village, where we had been long expected and where a very busy
day was spent. A number of Indians were gathered and there were children
to baptize and couples to marry, as well as the lesson of the season to
teach. It was a great disappointment that we had been unable to get here
before, and matter of regret that, being here at such labour, only so
short a time could be spent. But the closing season called to us
loudly. A mild, warm day set all the banks running with melting snow and
made the surface of the river mushy. There was really no time to lose,
for the next seventy-five miles was to give us the most difficult and
disagreeable travelling of the journey. Here, in the Flats, where is
greatest need of travel direction on the whole river, was no trail at
all beyond part of the first day's journey. Within the Ramparts the
river is confined in one channel; however bad the travelling may be,
there is no danger of losing the way; but in the Flats the river divides
into many wide channels and these lead off into many more back sloughs,
with low, timbered banks and no salient landmarks at all. Behind us were
the bluffs of the Ramparts, already growing faint; afar off on the
horizon, to the right, were the dim shapes of the Beaver Mountains. All
the rest was level for a couple of hundred miles.

A local trail to a neighbouring wood-chopper's took us some twelve
miles, and then we were at a loss. The general direction we knew, and
previous journeys both in winter and summer gave us some notion of the
river bends to follow, but we wallowed and floundered until late at
night before we reached the cabin we were bound for, the snow exceeding
soft and wet for hours in the middle of the day.

The time had plainly come to change our day travel into night travel,
for freezing was resumed each night after the sun was set, and the
surface grew hard again. So at this cabin we lay all the next day, with
an interesting recluse of these parts who knows many passages of
Shakespeare by heart, and who drew us a chart of our course to the next
habitation, marking every bend to be followed and the place where the
river must be crossed. But there is always difficulty in getting a new
travel schedule under way, and we did not leave until five in the