HALT! 
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transportation at their command ; and from Fort Yukon, 
where they struck off from the river, to its mouth would 
have been a voyage of a clear thousand miles, and that, 
too, through the very kind of district most conducive to 
the malarial disorder which threatened the girl — to say 
nothing of the countless perils of the trip. Even should 
they reach the sea in safety, they would be too late to 
take the last south-bound ships to the settlements ; and 
the small post at St. Michael's, in the midst of a desolate 
land of wintry storms, was not an alluring prospect. 
Had all gone well, the lieutenant had hoped to pilot 
his party, after the Red Mountain was found and roughly 
surveyed, to the country lying about the head-waters of 
the Copper River, down which they could raft to the coast, 
and make the short sea-trip easily in canoes to Sitka. 
Had all gone well ! " But all had not gone well ; 
and here was the expedition snowed in, in the interior of 
one of the wildest and coldest habitable countries on the 
globe, with no prospect of release until the following 
May ; and with a sick girl suffering for want of proper 
nursing and medicine. Truly, all had not gone well ! 
To understand fully just how matters stood, we must 
retrace our steps a little. 
We left the expedition on the borders of a small and 
exquisitely beautiful lake, surrounded by stately red cedars 
of centuries growth. This is the first you have heard of 
the lake, you say ? Turn back and look at Peeschee's in- 
valuable chart. In the centre, do you see that circle with 
