FROM CANDLE TO FORT GIBBON 391 



On January 27 we left that place in a snowstorm, which, 

 however, decreased as the day wore on. We made good pro- 

 gress and expected to reach Unalaklik before nightfall. Our 

 prospects were of the best. The mail courier, with his splendid 

 team, was ahead of us, making a fresh trail which our dogs 

 could follow, and the snow was not nearly so deep as on the 



IN NORTON BAY. 



previous days. In a little more than five hours we made 

 twenty-eight miles; then we stopped for lunch, and as there 

 was only a distance of twelve miles between us and Unalaklik, 

 we took our time over the lunch and even permitted ourselves 

 the luxury of smoking a cigar after it. But I ought to have 

 been long enough on the trail to have learned that a place is 

 never reached until we actually are there, nothing being so full 

 of surprises as the trail itself. We started at 2 P.M., but it was 

 soon evident that our luck had entirely changed. Over the 

 mail courier's trail, only an hour old, there was water two or 

 three inches deep, and the water was still rising over the ice- 

 foot on which we travelled. The ice had broken up during the 

 recent gales and drifted far out to sea, only leaving a narrow 

 icefoot about 15 feet wide. The land to which the icefoot 

 was attached was inaccessible, as it was about 300 feet 

 high and very steep. For a time all went well, and as we 

 were not far from the place where the mountains went further 

 inland, I thought that we should manage to get through. But 

 when we had gone for about a mile through the water, which 

 had by that time reached our knees, it commenced to rise faster, 

 so much as to frighten both the dogs and ourselves. And no 



