CHAPTER XIV.
BOAT-BUILDING AT LAKE LINDERMAN.
The Portneys, having reached the highest point of Chilkoot Pass, were presently joined by Captain Zoss and Dr. Barwaithe, who had gone through a similar experience to that just described. The doctor had once come very close to losing his footing, and he declared that he would not make the climb again for a million dollars.
They stopped for a few minutes to view the scene from the edge of the cliff. On either side were the still taller mountains, while below them stretched that portion of the Pass just travelled, like a valley of glittering ice, thick with mist and wind-swept snow. An intense silence reigned, broken occasionally by the booming and crunching of some immense glacier in the distance.
"A grand scene, but one not particularly suited to my feelings," said the doctor. "Let us go on."
"Yes; the sooner we git out o' this yere Pass, the better I will be pleased," added the captain. "I've had enough climbin' ter last me two lifetimes, eh?" and he gave a grunt and strode off, and the others followed.
"That is, I believe, the most perilous part of the trip to the gold fields," remarked Foster Portney. "Of course we have still a good bit of rough country to traverse and rapids in the rivers to shoot, but nothing quite so bad as that."
The ice fields from the summit sloped gradually downward to a basin some distance below, called Crater Lake. This little lake was frozen solid from top to bottom and covered with snow. It was hemmed in on three sides by tall mountains, while on the fourth there was a cañon-like opening, where an ice-bound stream led the way over rocks and tiny cliffs to Lake Linderman, at the end of the Pass. Just before reaching the latter lake, they passed several large posts set up close to the trail, which was now once more clearly defined.
"Those are surveyors' posts," said Foster Portney, in reply to a question from Earl. "We have just passed from United States into British territory."
"This, then, is the Northwest Territory," said Earl.