"Travels in Alaska 



the sled bodily and to cross many narrow, nerve-try- 

 ing, ice-sliver bridges, balancing astride of them, and 

 cautiously shoving the sled ahead of me with tremen- 

 dous chasms on either side. I had made perhaps not 

 more than six or eight miles in a straight line by six 

 o'clock this evening when I reached ice so hummocky 

 and tedious I concluded to camp and not try to take 

 the sled any farther. I intend to leave it here in 

 the middle of the basin and carry my sleeping-bag 

 and provisions the rest of the way across to the west 

 side. I am cozy and comfortable here resting in the 

 midst of glorious icy scenery, though very tired. I 

 made out to get a cup of tea by means of a few shav- 

 ings and splinters whittled from the bottom board of 

 my sled, and made a fire in a little can, a small camp- 

 fire, the smallest I ever made or saw, yet it answered 

 well enough as far as tea was concerned. I crept into 

 my sack before eight o'clock as the wind was cold and 

 my feet wet. One of my shoes is about worn out. I 

 may have to put on a wooden sole. This day has been 

 cloudless throughout, with lovely sunshine, a purple 

 evening and morning. The circumference of moun- 

 tains beheld from the midst of this world of ice is 

 marvelous, the vast plain reposing in such soft tender 

 light, the fountain mountains so clearly cut, holding 

 themselves aloft with their loads of ice in supreme 

 strength and beauty of architecture. I found a skull 

 and most of the other bones of a goat on the glacier 

 about two miles from the nearest land. It had proba- 

 bly been chased out of its mountain home by wolves 

 and devoured here. I carried its horns with me. I 



[ 302 ] 



