y. When they reached a
house soon after, where there lived a chief named Nicolai, they found a
five-gallon kettle full of meat boiling on the fire. They drank large
quantities of the broth, and ate about five pounds of meat apiece. Much
of this meat was pure tallow from the moose. They all fell asleep
immediately after eating. When they awaked, they were almost as hungry
as before.

At last they reached the head waters of the Copper River. Here they
found the hungry Indians waiting for the salmon to come up from the
sea, as they do every year. As long as the salmon are in the river, the
Indians have plenty to eat. So they kept dipping their net, hoping to
catch some salmon. At last one little salmon was caught. It was a thin,
white-looking little fish. The Indians now knew that in two or three
days they would have plenty. They hung their little fish on a spruce
bough, and they kept visiting it, singing to it with delight. The white
men did not wait for the salmon to arrive.

From this place they left the Copper River, and started to cross the
mountains. This was the pass through which it was said that nobody
could go. Lieutenant Allen and his men were obliged to carry provisions
with them. Part of the provisions they carried themselves: the rest
they packed on dogs. This is a way of carrying things used only in
Alaska. A pack is strapped on a dog's back just as though he were a
mule, and with this the little dog goes on a long journey through the
mountains.

[Illustration: A Dog Pack Train.]

The party started over the mountains in June. At this season of the
year in that country the sun shines almost all night, and it is never
dark. Lieutenant Allen's party traveled either by day or by night, as
they pleased, as there was always light enough.

When they got to the foot of the last mountains they had to climb, they
found a little lake. Here they got some fish to eat, but the salmon had
not come yet. They hired some Indians to go with them, and divided the
weight of everything into packs. Every man carried a pack, and every
dog carried as much as he could bear. As they climbed the mountains,
they could look back over the beautiful valley of the Copper River.
Still hungry and nearly tired out, they pushed on until they camped by
a brook in the mountains.

Here they found that the salmon had come up the Copper River from the
sea, and had run up this brook and overtaken them. The fish were
crowding up the brook to g