356 FOUR YEARS IN THE WHITE NORTH 



After tea we started up the cold, rocky, narrow gorge. 

 Four times we had to unload our sledges and carry 

 everything over the rock dams that had slidden across 

 the gorge. Finally we came to one so steep and high 

 that Esayoo said it would be wisest for us to investigate 

 farther on foot, to determine with certainty whether or 

 not we could get out, before we carried all the equip- 

 ment and sledges up over the barrier. While E-took-a- 

 shoo watched the dogs, Esayoo and I scouted ahead. 

 After a five-mile walk, we came at last to the end of the 

 gorge and found that it ended in a steep, rocky wall up 

 which we could not take our sledges. Much discouraged, 

 we retraced our steps to the sledges, and after a con- 

 sultation headed back down the gorge. Several hours' 

 hard traveling brought us to the main canon again, and 

 we pitched camp. 



The prospect began to concern us. For three days 

 our dogs had had no food; the going had been hard, the 

 weather cold. We could find no way out with our dogs 

 and sledges. The following day I suffered a slight at- 

 tack of snow-blindness, so I could not travel, and our 

 concern increased, but Esayoo and E-took-a-shoo found 

 a place where they thought we might possibly get up 

 on the plateau. We built a cairn on a great flat- topped 

 rock at the forks of the canon, left a record in it, cached 

 some of our small store of petroleum and every bit of 

 equipment with which we could dispense, and early the 

 next morning hit the trail again. All day we toiled, and 

 when the sun began to swing into the north finally 

 got up onto the plateau. Though we saw spoor of 

 musk-oxen, none were fresh; our dogs were worn and 

 weak and suffering; unless we found meat quickly we 

 should be in a precarious situation. 



