THE KATZEHIN RIVER IN ALASKA 173 



and each again dividing at intervals in such a way as to 

 form many large creeks running parallel over the entire 

 surface of the wide, continuous bar. Then began as 

 difficult a task of tracking a canoe as I have ever experi- 

 enced. The water was one continual, swift riffle, and 

 it required all of our combined strength to pull the boat 

 against it. We could not select the right channel and 

 kept hauling on the line until, after having proceeded from 

 two hundred yards to a quarter of a mile, the water be- 

 came so shallow that it was necessary to retreat and try 

 another channel until the right one was found. In this 

 way we progressed until midnight before camping, and 

 again all the next day, gaining only ten miles to a point 

 where the river bends sharply toward the glacier, then 

 four miles distant. There we made camp on the bank 

 of a clear creek, emerging from a canon, evidently flow- 

 ing from a lake high up in the mountains and entering 

 the Katzehin River at the curve. High, rugged moun- 

 tains with precipitous slopes and sharp, serried crests, 

 broken into spires and pinnacles, reared up very close 

 on both sides of us. 



The following morning I started north along the slope 

 of a mountain, while Johnson went in an easterly direc- 

 tion. Two bands of goats, each numbering fifteen or 

 twenty, were feeding in a grassy space near the crest above 

 me, and I watched them more or less all day. Not having 

 a permit to shoot one out of season, I did not attempt to 

 go after them. It would have been quite possible to 

 have stalked them, although that mountain, like all others 

 of the coast ranges near the Katzehin River, was exceed- 



