"We're nearly out of sugar and salt," Uncle Will announced a day or two later.

"The water spoiled a good part of what we had when my sled went through the ice. Do you feel like taking a walk down to Dalton's, Charles, while I finish up these sluice-boxes?"

"Yes," replied Mr. Bradford, "and I might take along one of the boys."

So it was decided that Roly and his father should go to the trading-post with Coffee Jack for guide.

They set out early in the morning to take advantage of the lowest stage of the river, which, owing to the coolness of the last few days, had fallen considerably. They were thus enabled to make the fordings without undue danger, and found themselves in about three hours at the mouth of the gorge, having stopped but a moment at each of the camps.

Directly opposite them across the valley, which extended, with a uniform width of about four miles, from Lake Dasar-dee-ash on the east toward a range of lofty peaks far to the west, loomed a fine cluster of mountains[224] ribbed with melting snow. By skirting the eastern slopes of these mountains over a new trail made by prospectors, they would come upon the Dalton trail at Klukshu Lake, and this was the route Mr. Bradford preferred, but Coffee Jack was not familiar with it and desired to follow the old Indian trail to the west of the mountains. Accordingly, they passed out of the gorge along the great dry gravel deposit, which they followed in its turn to the right, having first exchanged their rubber boots, with which they could now dispense, for the stout shoes which they had slung across their shoulders. The boots were hung in the forks of a clump of willows, where they could easily be found on their return.

Mr. Bradford called Roly's attention to the long stretch of treeless gravel curving to the west.

"It is evident," said he, "that the Kah Sha River once flowed in this westerly course, but having choked itself up by successive accumulations of gravel and boulders ejected from the gorge in its spring floods, it now takes the opposite direction and empties into Lake Dasar-dee-ash."

"That's something I never should have thought of," said Roly, with interest, "and it's plain enough, too."

"You can read a good deal of geological history," observed his father, "by keeping your eyes open and noticing simple things. Every boulder, cliff, and sand-bank[225] has a story to tell of the forces of ice, flood, or fire."

At length Coffee Jack left the low ground, which had become swampy, and followed a line of foot-hills, where the trail could sometimes be discerned by Mr. Bradford and Roly, but more often not. The young guide walked silently, with his head bent and his eyes fixed upon the ground.

"No white man would be content with a trail like this," Mr. Bradford remarked. "The white man blazes the trees and looks up for his signs, while the Indian relies upon footprints, faint though they may be, and looks down. I imagine that by their manner of following a trail you may gain an insight into the characteristics of the two races,—the one alert, hopeful, business-like, brainy; the other keen of instinct, easy-going, stealthy, and moody."

"But what signs does Coffee Jack see?" inquired Roly. "There are plenty of places where I can't see any path, but he goes right along."

"The marks are various," said his father. "It may be that the grass is matted or less vigorous or of an altered hue where it has been trodden, or a twig may be broken, or a mouldering tree-trunk rubbed a little, but I presume that in such a place as this the boy is guided partly by his knowledge that the trail follows the side of these hills at about this height."

[226]

Coffee Jack discovered footprints of the moose and the caribou in several places, and took delight in pointing them out to his companions, whose powers of observation he evidently did not rate very high. He gave them, too, a glimpse of a large lake to the northwest which was not on the map.

Late the second afternoon they circled a small lake, swung around the southern slopes of the mountains on their left, and entered the main trail on the summit of the great hill above the Stik village. How changed was the valley of the Alsek since last they looked upon it! Where before were snow and ice now smiled a landscape of rich green. Below them clustered the Indian houses in a grassy clearing by the river. The sound of voices and the barking of dogs came plainly up. It was difficult to realize that they were not looking on a white man's village, yet not until they reached the trading-post, now surrounded with the white tents of incoming p............