FROM CANDLE TO FORT GIBBON 



389 



continually, and that in spite of our knowing that our dogs were 

 doing their best under the circumstances. None of them but 

 the leader could see anything, and he only with one eye ; the 

 other eye, as well as those of all the other dogs, was covered with 

 a coating of ice, caused by the snowdrift and the condensation 

 of their breaths. But we crawled slowly and laboriously 



CARSON S ROAD-HOUSE. 



upwards, plunging into deep snow, getting off the trail time 

 after time, stopping continually to sit on the sledge with the 

 back to the wind, trying to restore the circulation in our frozen 

 faces. 



After four hours of climbing we reached the summit, and the 

 weather became considerably better, but not so the trail, which 

 was the worst I had seen yet. First, it was so narrow that one 

 of the sledge-runners all the time was outside it ; secondly, it was 

 crooked and impossible to follow, while the snow on either side 

 was soft and several feet deep. Mr. Carson went ahead with 

 Mr. Adams, who was quite worn out, as he was not in training 

 for the trail, and I plodded slowly along behind, only one mile an 

 hour, though with hard work and the horrid weather our 

 progress seemed still slower. 



At last the road-house came in sight, and Mrs. Carson, who 



