390 CONQUERING THE ARCTIC ICE 



had seen us coming, received us with something warm to eat 

 and drink. It was most welcome, and the first cup of tea, 

 which was swallowed scalding hot, seemed the best drink I ever 

 tasted. 



On the following day the hard weather showed no signs of 

 abating, and we stayed on, rubbing and tending the feet of our 

 dogs and talking with Mr. and Mrs. Carson. They had come 

 into the country during the rush of 1898, and like many others 

 they had failed to realize their hopes of a bonanza. But the 

 life in Alaska appealed to them, and although Mr. Carson was 

 himself M.D., he built a road-house on the shores of Norton 

 Bay, where he made a good deal of money during the rush for 

 Nome. However, those good days were already past, and 

 now there was nothing to be done but to board an occasional 

 stranger and breed and bring up sledge dogs. 



On January 23, after leaving the road-house, we had another 

 very disagreeable day. First we had soft snow along the coast, 

 through which we had to wade knee deep, both of us toiling 

 hard. Then we came to thin ice, dangerously thin, and next 

 into water. The gale had made the water rise on top of the 

 icefoot, and we broke through continually, at times as far as the 

 waist. The wind freshened, the snow commenced to drift, and 

 the short winter day was rapidly waning. We had no tent, as 

 we had expected to go from road-house to road-house, and it was 

 soon too dark to see where we were go#ng. But our good 

 fortune guided us into a ruined Eskimo town, where " Old 

 Moses " had the most miserable and poorest of road-houses, but 

 it gave us the shelter, the warmth, and the food which we needed. 



Day after day passed with never-ending toil, for the weather 

 was rather warm and the snow of the trail soft and deep. We 

 stayed in Isaack's Point road-house, where " Old Julius " cooked 

 a splendid dinner for us, and after that we crossed Norton 

 Sound and stayed at Bonanza road-house. Then we went 

 across country and reached Shaktolik, and not till then did the 

 weather change. It became cold and windy, the snow was 

 blowing right into our faces, and although we ought to have 

 gone on and covered the fifteen miles which were between our- 

 selves and the next road-house, the thought was not agreeable 

 to us, and we stayed with the host of the road-house of Shaktolik, 

 a half-bred Russian, who gave us a very nice meal. 



