32 THE WILDERNESS OF THE UPPER YUKON 



exquisite clear lakes of several acres each, continually 

 filled by the melting snow above. The latter was in the 

 form of a great irregular square, at least a mile wide. 

 Undulating in gentle hills and wide green pastures, it 

 produced an impression of surpassing beauty, with great 

 mountains encircling it, rising up in rocks and cliffs, 

 culminating in sharp peaks perhaps the highest of those 

 in the divide ranges. 



Except on the bare rocks, all the mountains were more 

 or less covered with lichen-moss, which, in turn, was span- 

 gled with exquisite small dots of flowers, some bright blue, 

 some pink, and some crimson. Flowers abounded over 

 all the mountain-slopes, basins, and valleys. Dryas was 

 common everywhere, also a species of cranberry, Vacin- 

 nium vitisidcea, the leaves of which were always slippery 

 to walk on. I sat for some time looking about through 

 my field-glasses, but saw nothing and, descending on the 

 east side of the slope to the creek which runs through a 

 deep gorge, had started toward camp when I met Osgood 

 setting his traps for small mammals. 



Together we reached camp at ten, and found Rungius 

 there with the body of the cub. He had seen it walking 

 under the same cliffs and shot it. 



That night was clear and cold, the thermometer going 

 to twenty-eight degrees before morning. When we first 

 settled in this camp mosquitoes were at their worst and 

 very troublesome. All of us slept under mosquito netting. 

 The horses suffered the most, and we had to build several 

 smudges and keep them going all day so that the animals 

 could gather around them. If these smudges were not 



