160 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE KARLUK 
our supplies up, Munro, Mamen and myself get¬ 
ting in with the last load just at dark. 
The going was bad nearly all the way along here. 
Kataktovick and I were off at the first crack of 
dawn picking the trail for the others to follow with 
their pickaxes and their lightly loaded sledges. It 
was necessary for us to make fairly good loads, 
for a white man can not handle a sledge as deftly 
as an Eskimo can and we had not enough Eskimo 
to drive all the sledges even if they had been free 
from the work of trail-making and building igloos. 
We made about seven miles during the day. 
Sometimes we had to get the sledges up on a ridge 
fifty feet high with an almost sheer drop on the 
other side. When we came to such rough paces 
we would harness all the dogs to a sledge and all 
of us who could get a hand on it would help push 
the sledge. When we got the sledge up to the top 
we would run a rope from it to another sledge 
down below and as the first sledge went down the 
other side it would pull the second sledge up. 
