They ate their evening meal, protected by the smoke, and Ainsworth, lying back with lighted pipe, watching Pete bake flapjacks for the next day, experienced a comfortable, soothing sensation. The long twilight of the Northland died, and the dark marched over Bennett. Upon the clean rock they had picked as a camping place their twin fires shone with a ruddy glow against the dark green of the shrubbery and blocked out their canvas like some giant white moth among the bushes.
Northern insects and lizards sang and crooned in voices strange to Ainsworth; strange noises of the darkness echoed and ceased; the stars wheeled slowly, and the crimson camp blaze faded to amber coals.
"Put your head under the blanket an' keep her there," was Pete's warning, as they turned in.
Ainsworth tried to obey, but decided that the observance of such a decree would result in suffocation. He preferred to endure agony and live, for though the tent had been well prepared, it was impossible to keep out all the mosquitoes.
They sang in falsetto choruses above the sleepers' heads. Dave and Pete could hear the lawyer's stifled imprecations and vicious slappings till slumber overpowered them.
By morning Ainsworth was pretty well chewed, and stupid with loss of sleep. He bathed in the lake water while the others got breakfast, but the experiment was painful. The flies feasted on him while he undressed, whenever his head and shoulders rose above the surface, and when he dressed again. It seemed that they recognized no intermissions and countenanced no union hours.
On Tagish Lake an exasperating headwind baffled the canoeists as on the preceding day. Ainsworth soon caught the swing of the paddle, and his blade flickered and dipped in time with those of the steerer and the bowman.
Striking the sweep of the rolling waves, he had to bail until they could no longer make any advance. Along the shoreline they went overboard, Dave hauling ahead with the towline, while the lawyer and Pete pushed on the canoe through the nasty breakers. Hour by hour they struggled strenuously and unceasingly, the surf soaking them to their necks. Ainsworth did not like it, but the wet was better than flies.
A halt was made at Tagish Post for rest and recuperation, after which they pushed on with more favorable weather through Lake Marsh and reached the head of Box Cañon. The strip of water between it and the foot of White Horse Rapids is treacherously bad, so they portaged where they could not line, and skirted the famous chutes.
Five Finger Rapids gave them a tough struggle, and snags capsized them twice, but they accomplished the descent on the third attempt and entered deep river water. Here the current ran tremendously strong, and only where they could not tow did they use the paddles. Towing was heart-breaking work, the ragged undergrowth, splintered rocks, and bays, necessitating ugly wading, proving drains on their strength. They fought the racing currents with the short, snappy Indian stroke and drove through swirling whirlpools, called eddies, at the expense of all their reserve power. At the Police post on the Big Salmon they slept like dead men, and started late the next day.