22 HUNTERS OF THE GREAT NORTH 



those things would strike the Indians. It was even pos- 

 sible that this lot would prove more popular than any 

 other and might set a fashion so the Indians would de- 

 mand similar multicolored ribbons next year. 



There were three things I did not like about our journey 

 down stream. The first was the increasing heat. After 

 the middle of June we began to suffer from it a good deal. 

 One day the temperature was 103 in the shade. It was 

 a humid heat and therefore difficult to stand. A tempera- 

 ture of no° or 115 in a desert like Arizona would be 

 far less unpleasant. 



Our second trouble was that the mosquitoes were get- 

 ting worse day by day. Towards the 20th of June they 

 were so bad that they annoyed us even in midriver. When 

 we landed they came about us in swarms. If the weather 

 had been cool it might not have been unpleasant to dress 

 heavily enough so that mosquitoes could not sting through, 

 but in the extreme heat it is exceedingly unpleasant to 

 wear thick clothes all over your body, heavy buckskin 

 gauntlet gloves on your hands, a big sombrero on your 

 head, and a mosquito net that is gathered around the 

 crown of the hat, comes out over the brim and has to be 

 tucked under the collar of your coat so as to prevent in- 

 sects from exploring your back. When it is hot you want 

 every breath of air and a veil of heavy mosquito netting 

 keeps a good deal of the air away. 



Luckily I do not smoke. It was amusing to see the 

 bother the smokers had. They would get long-stemmed 

 pipes, make small round holes in the mosquito netting, 

 and thrust the stems of the pipes through so they could 

 puff at them. Occasionally a mosquito would get on the 

 stem of a pipe and crawl in that way. This was not so 

 likely to happen, however; but when the smoker was 



