200 ™e bed mountain of Alaska. 
There was one more apprehension, of which the lieu- 
tenant did not speak to the rest of the party. By the 
middle of September the warm season would be over, and 
snow would fall among the mountains by October first, if 
not before. If they should be caught by the wintry 
storms, and snowed in, their escape alive would be almost 
a miracle. Whatever was to be done, then, must be 
accomplished within about eight weeks at the latest, as it 
was now the middle of July. Besides, the last vessels 
going south from St. Michael's, at the stormy mouth of 
the Yukon, would leave before the end of September. Cut 
oft' from this avenue of exit from Alaska, the only alter- 
native was a long and arduous struggle with the forest, 
through an unknown country, directly south to William's 
Sound. This last route was, moreover, almost impassable 
on account of the enormous glaciers, which can be seen 
for miles at sea, and which furnish the northern Pacific 
with thousands of icebergs every summer, advancing down 
the mountain-side, as they do, at the rate of forty feet a 
day, or about twelve times as fast as the swiftest pace 
attained by the great glaciers of Mont Blanc, — the 
Du Bois and Mer de Glace. 
Under the circumstances, great alacrity was necessary 
to prevent their trip from being an utter failure, or to 
escape from the wilderness with their lives. 
The raft was now poled out to the lower end of one of 
the little islands with which the river was dotted, and 
the heaviest of the goods stowed upon it, so as to be 
