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So the reluctant adieus made, letters despatched, some mailed here at Kikitaruk, some to be carried back to Bettles and mailed there these latter getting outside long before the former we started at seven in the morning instead of six, as we had planned, on the journey down the shore of Kotzebue Sound. That hour's delay turned out to be a calamity for us.
It was very warm barely ten below zero and the men did not mind. Meyers and Bettles had raised their ear flaps, while Malemute Kid had even taken off his mittens. The dogs had been fagged out early in the after noon, but they now began to show new vigor.
The mail was taken charge of, the dogs driven away to quarters and fed, and Bettles struck up the paean of the sassafras root as they lined up against the long bar to drink and talk and collect their debts. A few minutes later, Daylight was whirling around the dance-floor, waltzing with the Virgin.
The third day the thermometer stood at -49° and we were free to leave without actually breaking the rule we had made after the escapade on the Yukon. Two other teams were going down the river, so we started with them on the sixty-five mile journey to Bettles.
Bettles, dashed across the road into some houses on the far side, where they saw some enemy. 2nd Lieut. Bettles was killed with a pistol bullet, but the Boche were driven out, and Lieut. Ball came up and started at once to consolidate his captured position. One officer, 29 men and eight horses were sent down as prisoners. "D" Company's position was precarious.
Bettles pointed to a robe of Arctic hare skins, the end of which showed in the mouth of a bag. "That's his bed," he said. "Six pounds of rabbit skins. Warmest thing he ever slept under, but I'm damned if it could keep me warm, and I can go some myself. Daylight's a hell-fire furnace, that's what he is." "I'd hate to be that Indian," Doc Watson remarked.
I can take my medicine all right, all right; but I'm just decently ashamed of myself, that's all. Here I am, on top of a dirty thirty miles, as knocked up and stiff and sore as a pink-tea degenerate after a five-mile walk on a country turn-pike. Bah! It makes me sick! Got a match?" "Don't git the tantrums, youngster." Bettles passed over the required fire-stick and waxed patriarchal.
Bettles, himself one of the gamest of the old-timers in deeds and daring ceased from his drunken lay of the "Sassafras Root," and titubated over to congratulate Daylight. But in the midst of it he felt impelled to make a speech, and raised his voice oratorically. "I tell you fellers I'm plum proud to call Daylight my friend.
We were unable to stir from Bettles for two solid weeks, for during the whole of that time the thermometer never rose above 50° below zero. The long wait at Bettles would have been excessively tedious had it not been for the kind hospitality of Mr. and Mrs.
OH! OH!" A young fellow, lying asleep in the furs, bearded and wan and weary, raised a moan of pain, and without waking increased the pitch and intensity of his anguish. His body half-lifted from the blankets, and quivered and shrank spasmodically, as though drawing away from a bed of nettles. "Roll'm over!" ordered Bettles. "He's crampin'."
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