GLACIERS AND WOODED ISLANDS 285 



outward for defence. We succeeded in roping five rather 

 young ones. The rest got away. We had to make the 

 return march with great difficulty, keeping watch on our 

 back trail against the revengeful natives, whom we knew 

 we had mortally offended. After passing the Indian 

 country we relaxed our vigilance, only to find one morn- 

 ing that all of our musk-oxen had their throats cut. The 

 tracks of one of our guides told the story. He had 

 dogged us for weeks. We followed him for several days 

 but never caught him. He knew enough to travel fast 

 for he had done us out of $25,000. No musk-ox was in 

 captivity at that time and we had orders for these at 

 $5,000 apiece, from zoological gardens." 



It took us in all eight days to reach Seattle from 

 Seward, and a home-stretch of 3,000 miles across the 

 continent was accompUshed in less than four days more, 

 of actual running time. 



Upon November 21st we reached home after an 

 absence of five months and one-half, during which time 

 we had traveled nearly 17,000 miles. The excursion, 

 as we looked back on it, was satisfactory. It had in- 

 volved some Httle personal inconvenience, necessitated 

 bits of hard work now and then, and had resulted in a 

 few trophies which we would take pleasm-e in contemplat- 

 ing with a reminiscence not of scenes of slaughter, but 

 of a summer's travel in varied scenery with good 

 companions. 



