HOMEWARD BOUND 



"I'll take you across that glacier and guarantee 

 a safe crossing. Ice fields are no worse to cross 

 than ice streams. Fully as many men have lost 

 their lives in the streams as on the glaciers" — 

 and we realized the truth of his statement, for 

 with the ever-present quicksand and the con- 

 stant changing of the channels, stream travel 

 by packs is very dangerous. 



A stream hke the White, the Nizina or the 

 Generc has a stream-bed (or bar) of approxi- 

 mately two miles across on the average. This 

 bar (as I believe I have already stated) is com- 

 posed of boulders, gravel, sand and quicksand. 

 The latter is so common that the traveler must 

 needs be constantly on the lookout for it. Horses 

 have been lost in the quicksands of the White 

 and tributary streams, and it is no very un- 

 common thing to have to pull a sinking horse out 

 by the neck. 



To look across one of these bars one would 

 naturally take it for a waterless waste of sand 

 and boulders, but when you travel out over its 

 surface you encounter the channel — or one of 

 them, as most always there are several — thru 

 which rushes in mad fury the glacial, muddy 

 water. 



Next morning, September i2th, after leaving 

 some provisions and a note of instructions for 

 Brownie, we packed up and departed McCarthy- 

 ward. Good spirits pervaded all, and weather 

 and trail conditions being favorable we made 



191 



