1 62 CAMP FIRES IN THE YUKON 



but without falling, until old Reiley, loaded with 

 sheep horns for side packs and caribou antlers for 

 top pack, slipped on a bad slope and rolled over. 

 Fortunately he had sense enough to lie quiet and 

 thus prevented the sharp horns of his packs from 

 piercing his sides, while we took off his load and 

 helped him to his feet again, after which he received 

 his burden and the caravan continued its ascending 

 course. A little later Reiley wandered away from 

 the column, probably with his eyes shut, and was 

 headed straight for the edge of a precipice and had 

 reached a point within two feet of the brink, when 

 Jack Hayden caught him and brought him within 

 the fold. 



At the summit of the pass we looked back upon 

 the most stupendous and dazzling scene that has 

 ever risen before the writer's gaze, as ridge after 

 ridge of mountains rising rank upon rank, glowed 

 and glared in the sun like metal at white heat, while 

 the mighty ice mass of Mt. Natazhat's seventeen 

 thousand feet crest challenged the heavens. In sun- 

 shine, with the Gods of the Wilderness smiling, the 

 crossing proved to be nothing more than very stren- 

 uous climbing up the snow slopes, in the midst of a 

 panorama of infinite and unspeakable beauty and 

 grandeur; but had a blizzard overtaken us the story 

 must have been very different. In the afternoon we 

 came down the mountains, and at four o'clock found 

 the first willow where we could get a little firewood 



