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Such work was far from exhilarating also, they must expect places where for miles at a time they must toil over chaotic ice-jams, where they would be fortunate if they made two miles an hour. And there would be the inevitable bad jams, short ones, it was true, but so bad that a mile an hour would require terrific effort. Kama and Daylight did not talk.
He told Kama as much, but on the third day the temperature began to rise, and they knew snow was not far off; for on the Yukon it must get warm in order to snow. Also, on this day, they encountered ten miles of chaotic ice-jams, where, a thousand times, they lifted the loaded sled over the huge cakes by the strength of their arms and lowered it down again.
There was shore ice, however, even in the open bends, along which we were able to creep; and, though the ice-jams gave considerable trouble, yet we did very well the first day and camped at dark with eighteen or nineteen miles to our credit, in the presence of a great, red, smoky sunset and a glorious alpenglow on a distant snow mountain. The next day was full of risks and difficulties.
Day and night the ice artillery thundered. Night and day the fireplaces roared defiance to a frost they could not subdue, while the people of desolation crouched beneath the tyranny of winter. Then the upheaval of spring with the ice-jams and terrors, the Moose roaring by untamable, the torrents rising, rising foot by foot to the very dooryard of her father's house.
But the ice-jams were smaller, the going better; so I pushed the dogs hard and traveled late and early. As I said at Forty Mile, every inch of it was snow-shoe work. And the shoes made great sores on our feet, which cracked and scabbed but would not heal. And every day these sores grew more grievous, till in the morning, when we girded on the shoes, Long Jeff cried like a child.
The store was built near the site of Government House and according to Moses H. Perley it was carried away by one of those periodical ice-jams for which the vicinity of St. Ann's Point has been noted from time immemorial. See illustration on preceding page of a recent ice-jam at this place. Another store was built and Benjamin Atherton took charge of it.
Hummocks and ice-jams and the weaving patterns of mink tracks were blended in one white immensity, on which Carl was like a fly on a plaster ceiling. The world was deserted. But Carl was not lonely. He forgot all about Gertie as he cached his skees by the shore and prowled through the woods, leaping on brush-piles and shooting quickly when a rabbit ran out.
It was at this point that the Dyea trail, baffled by ice-jams, swerved abruptly across the Yukon to the east bank. And here they must leave the hard-packed, main-travelled trail, mount the jams, and follow a dim trail, but slightly packed, that hovered the west bank. Louis Gastell, leading, slipped in the darkness on the rough ice, and sat up, holding his ankle in both his hands.
It was at this point that the Dyea trail, baffled by ice-jams, swerved abruptly across the Yukon to the east bank. And here they must leave the hard-packed, main-travelled trail, mount the jams, and follow a dim trail, but slightly packed, that hovered the west bank. Louis Gastell, leading, slipped in the darkness on the rough ice, and sat up, holding his ankle in both his hands.
The twenty-five miles between White River and Sixty Mile he had broken into two stages because of ice-jams, and here two of his heaviest, toughest teams were stationed. He lay on the sled at full length, face-down, holding on with both hands. Whenever the dogs slacked from topmost speed he rose to his knees, and, yelling and urging, clinging precariously with one hand, threw his whip into them.
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