INTO THE KENAI 209 



shoes were soaked through by the swampy land under 

 foot and the cold wind froze every piece of clothing on us. 

 When we stopped for a rest, as we did frequently, we 

 could remain seated only a few minutes because the 

 sweat chilled us through. 



Eventually we reached the southern edge of the plateau 

 where a low dike connected two taller mountains. From 

 this little ridge a splendid view lay below us. The Killey 

 River, two thousand feet lower, ran from left to right 

 across our vision as it issued from a narrow gap in the 

 mountains on the left and meandered through lower 

 country to enter Cook's Inlet at the town of Kenai. Far 

 to the westward across the water of Cook's Inlet 

 towered a vast serrated range of snow-clad mountains, 

 the northern end of the Aleutian range, of which the 

 highest peaks, IHamna and Redoubt, were somnolent 

 volcanoes. 



All this was not revealed to us fully upon the first 

 day, but we could see sufficient to give us an accurate 

 conception of the character of the Kenai Peninsula in 

 its central portion. The land sloped generally from east 

 to west. The watershed lay close to the eastern coast, 

 where the mountains were covered with the great Kenai 

 Glacier, forty-five miles long. On the western slopes of 

 this Kenai Range we were to find the white sheep of 

 our search. On the lower foothills and timbered flats 

 still farther westward lived the great moose and all 

 through this country from the higher mountains to the 

 lower land we were likely to happen upon brown and 

 black bear. 



The other three hunters of our party had penetrated 

 farther south and east. Their design was to go around 

 us, so to speak, and from this lookout we could fairly 



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