400 CONQUERING THE ARCTIC ICE 



eaten we rolled ourselves up in our blankets to sleep. We 

 were told that the road-house was a halfway house ; in other 

 words, we had twenty-two miles before us, and, as they proved, 

 they were the longest twenty-two miles I ever walked. 



We started before daybreak on the 6th. The weather was 

 bad ; a heavy snowfall obliterated the trail and made the going 

 hard. Every now and then we had to stop to allow our dogs 

 to bite the snow from between their toes, and as the day wore 

 on the halts became both more frequent and longer; two of 

 the dogs had learned the trick of assuming a limping gait, 

 which at once made the driver stop the team. We met a 

 mail courier about halfway and were glad to follow his trail, 

 but before long we were again feeling our way along. A 

 traveller on a portage must be careful to follow the trail, for 

 in case he should leave it he will be lost entirely and will not 

 know how to find his way out again. Whenever we came to 

 a lake I therefore went ahead, breaking the trail for the dogs. 

 It was easy enough to stay on the trail without snow-shoes, as 

 I sank waist deep into snow immediately I stepped off it, but 

 it was hard to keep the sledge on it, narrow and snow covered 

 as it was. The dogs hustled each other for fear of falling into 

 the deep snow on either side of the trail, and, everything con- 

 sidered, we went very slowly and very laboriously. Just as the 

 day was fading we came out to .the Yukon again, but there it 

 was blowing and snowing so hard that we could not see three 

 hundred yards about us. Trail there was none ; we only knew 

 that we had to cross the river, follow the opposite bank east- 

 wards, and we would come to Loudon. I lit a lantern to see 

 where we were going, but only now and then, at long intervals, 

 we could see a faint indication of the trail. We crossed to the 

 other side of the river, but whether we were east or west of the 

 station we did not know. For two hours we went along the 

 bank, then we saw a faint light ahead ; we whipped up our 

 weary animals to make one last effort, and in the course of a 

 few minutes we drove into town. 



The soldiers had been expecting us, and at once hustled 

 us inside to get something to eat, of which, indeed, we 

 were in great need, as we had not eaten for nearly eighteen 

 hours. 



All the next day a gale was blowing from the up-river country. 



