ves?"

I did not know what I meant; it seemed not unnatural that a woman with
such prospect before her should be a little timid, but she was resolute
that we go, and we went.

Not until the next summer did I learn the upshot--both patients
recovered and there was no other case. Six years later, when these words
are written, I have just baptized a son of the boy who lay so ill, who
would have perished, I think, had we not reached the Chandalar village
just in time.

CHAPTER II

CHANDALAR VILLAGE TO BETTLES, COLDFOOT, AND THE KOYUKUK

AT five o'clock in the morning of the 27th of December, hours before any
kind of daylight, while the faint "pit-pat" of all-night dancing still
sounded from the chief's cabin, we dropped down the steep bank to the
river surface and resumed our journey. Ahead was a man with a candle in
a tin can, peering for the faint indications of the trail on the ice;
the other two were at the handle-bars of the toboggans. It is strange
that in this day of invention and improvement in artificial
illumination, a candle in a tin can is still the most dependable light
for the trail. A coal-oil lamp requires a glass which is easily broken,
and the ordinary coal-oil that comes to Alaska freezes at about 40 deg.
below. In very cold weather a coal-oil lantern full of oil will go out
completely from the freezing of its supply. All the various acetylene
lamps are useless because water is required to generate the gas, and
water may not be had without stopping and building a fire and melting
ice or snow. The electric flash-lamp, useful enough round camp, goes out
of operation altogether on the trail, because the "dry" cell that
supplies its current is not a dry cell at all, but a moist cell, and
when its moisture freezes is dead until it thaws out again. No extremity
of cold will stop a candle from burning, and if it be properly sheltered
by the tin can it will stand a great deal of wind. The "folding pocket
lantern," which is nothing but a convenient tin can with mica sides, is
the best equipment for travel, but an empty butter can or lard can is
sometimes easier to come by.

The Chandalar is wide-spread in these parts, with several channels, and
the trail was hard to follow. One track we pursued led us up a bank and
along a portage and presently stopped at a marten trap; and we had to
cut across to the river and cast about hither and thither on its broad
surface to find the mail trail.

[Sidenote: