Travel, however, was very different in the one over-loaded canoe, and Rivers was not willing to allow any chances to be taken. The slightest evidence of shoal, rapid, or boulders meant wading. For the next three days, therefore, two men, each at one of the bows of the canoe, waded down the stream, finding out, with their shins mainly, where were boulders near enough to the surface of the water to strike the canoe.
On the second day of this sort of work, moreover, the temperature dropped fifty-two degrees in about six hours, and from a hot sun and humid air with a thermometer at eighty-eight degrees at noon, by dusk it was only four degrees above freezing with a driving gale and a stinging rain. While many camp conveniences had been left behind to lighten the canoe, a strip of canvas had been retained, and this was propped up with willow sticks in such wise as to keep some of the rain off.
But through the night the gale howled from the north, and the rain drove in with the sharpness of a whip-lash, so that the first faint light of dawn found every one ready for the start, as at least it was warmer moving about than lying under that pitiless sky. The only gleam of comfort was that it gave one day's respite from the eternal mosquitoes. The second day the norther abated, and fair weather returned, bringing with it, of course, the close personal attention of the mosquitoes of the lower tundra, though these were rapidly thinning out.
A couple of days of smooth water enabled the use of paddles and fair time was made, but after the junction with the Telugu River more shallow rapids and boulders were encountered, leading to more days of wading, continuing until they struck the main stream of the Colville, a river with a big head of water. But these various difficulties had delayed matters considerably, and not until August 10th did the divergence of the channels of the river show that the delta of the Colville was reached, where they hoped to find the Eskimo village of Nigaluk.
"What kind of a place is it?" asked Roger, as they encamped for the night.
"It is the metropolis of the Arctic Ocean," said Rivers with a smile; "the biggest city between Point Barrow and Hudson's Bay."
The boy was not taken in by the description, for he had a lively remembrance of Alaskan centers of population, and knew that anything more than four huts was considered as a post of no small importance, while one hut, all by itself, was deemed worthy of a place on the map. But though he did not expect a large place, he watched eagerly enough the next day for this Arctic city, wondering what kind of houses would be built to withstand the rigors of an Arctic winter.
But the solitary canoe went on and on, up this channel and down another, and still no village was seen. All the next two days the party searched, but to no purpose; apparently the Arctic metropolis was not there. The matter was extremely serious, for the provisions were almost exhausted, and on the evening of August 12th the wind switched again to the northward, and the first of the winter's snows hurled itself at them.
"If this is the middle of August!" exclaimed Roger, shivering, "what must it be like here in the middle of January?"