“In due time we floated into a great lagoon on the shores of which was a settlement. A dozen or so of river men and prospectors, a gambler or two, and a couple of policemen here had their abode.
“The stillness of lone lands is one of their special features. I know I enjoyed it, and my companions had no doubt some rude, unconscious sympathy with the natural beauties. At any rate, as the hoarse laughter floated across the lagoon it sounded a discord, and hearing it men became quiet.
“I have spoken of our capacity for eating. I shall never forget the moose tenderloin steaks we got from Indians at Little Salmon River. The joy of eating! civilization knows nothing like it. The best of fresh meat after weeks of bacon!
“At Little Salmon River, a tributary stream, the heavy frosts came upon us again, and here an interesting development affected our night’s rest. Our beds were made upon the cargo and beneath a great tarpaulin. No poles suspended the canvas; it lay flat against the hay and oats that constituted our load. The vapour arising from the comparatively warm water in the scow, the water that would correspond to the bilge of a ship, condensed upon the canvas. The effect was a coating of beautiful ice crystals, some of them an inch long. In the daylight they showed the most orderly system of spears and shafts, elaborate yet exact.
“As we crawled to our lairs at night the fairy-like ferns tingled joyously and fell upon us in wintry showers. In the morning they melted and drenched us. But we did well enough. Between times through the night we slept, all standing, as the sailors say, warm and comfortable.
“Frost is a most powerful agent in the north land. As you may guess, King Frost is a term used widely and not without reason. Indeed our passage was eminently a kindly dispensation of the monarch. As day succeeded day the ultimate closing of the mighty jaws of the river drew nearer. The owners’ money, my money, all our fortunes, depended on the absence of delays. Delays while inevitable, humanly speaking, were still a matter of chance. We were held at the caprice of winter.
“Jack Frost is indeed versatile. Not only did he commence to throw cakes of ice in the river, but placed a more active, if less tangible hindrance in our way. Over the river in the early mom a billowy, swaying, pink, yellow, purple, orange, blue mantle of mist hung. To guide our craft it was necessary to see, for the Yukon’s stream has many channels, only one of which, as a rule, is navigable for such a vessel as ours. About us were sand bars and islands, and to run aground meant loss of precious time, and possibly destruction.
“Of course, the sun rising would in time dissipate the fog, but while Jack Frost and he had their morning game at tossing cloud banks, we would lose an hour or two. As the days went by, and we lay further towards the arctic circle, the frost became heavier and the daily range of temperature less marked. About three days from our goal we ran into a snow storm and passed a few tributaries throwing out lumps of ice. The presence of floating ice, however, was a blessing, because it marked the more shallow spots and helped us to avoid them. When the air was not filled with snow, the skies were gray and sullen. It was a blessing there was no wind.
“Our last night out from Dawson I remember distinctly. The running ice had filled the river. At dusk we tied up at a woodcutter’s cabin, and learned we had fifty miles still to go. We went to bed, under our tingling tarpaulin; and, I remember, I lay awake just one minute listening to the ice crashing into our craft. Would the planks hold? A moment’s apprehension, and then—sleep.
“We started again at a perilously early hour. The ice had increased enormously during the night. The river was ‘bank full’ as the term is; it was a grinding, mixing lot. Had we struck a bar the rush of ice would have piled us on so tight we never would have got off again. But to offset this, the shore ice had now extended so far out that only the deepest channels were running. We could not have got aground if we had wanted to.