FOL. RIV. 2d N to CREEK OF STEAM. FOL. UP CREEK 2m. CAMP W BANK IN OLD MINE TUNNEL. DISCOVERY 100ft. E. TUNNEL MOUTH. 1 ABOVE CLAIM--STAKED FOR PETE MATEESE. LOOK OUT FOR WHITE INJUNS.
"Ol' mine tunnel! White Injuns!" exclaimed Waseche. "I tell yo' what, son: so fah, Carlson's maps has hit out, but when he begins writin' about white Injuns an' ol' mine tunnels, an' _cachin'_ skull bones, 'stead of meat! It's jest as I tol' yo'! We-all got to keep on now, but I sho' wisht we'd neveh found Carlson an' his crazy maps."
"Whose skull do you suppose it is? And why did he _cache_ it, I wonder?" asked Connie, as he handled gingerly the gruesome object.
"Seahch me!" said the man, glancing at the weather blackened skull. "Come on, le's mush."
As they advanced the surface of the surrounding land became more broken and the river descended rapidly in a series of falls, enclosed by the freezing spray, in huge irregular masses of green-hued ice, which impeded their progress and taxed to the utmost the skill of the drivers and the tricks of the trail-wise dogs in preventing the sleds from being dashed to pieces upon the slope of the ice domes, from whose hollow interiors came the muffled roar of the plunging falls.
The dogs were again on half ration, and even this was a serious drain upon the supply of meat. The walls of the river became higher until, on the second day, they were threading a veritable canyon. At noon the light dimmed suddenly, and the two gazed in surprise at the sun which glowed with a sickly, vapoury glare, while all about them the air was filled with tiny glittering frost flakes, which lay thick and fluffy under their feet and collected in diamond flashing clusters on the rocks and bushes of the canyon walls.
"It's snowing!" cried Connie, excitedly. "Snowing at forty below!"
"'Tain't snow, son. It's frozen fog, an' I cain't sense it. I c'n see how it might thick up an' snow, even at forty below, but fog! Doggone it! It takes wahm weatheh to _make_ fog--_an' it ain't wahm!_"
Toggling the lead dogs, they selected a spot where the wall of the canyon was riven by the deep gash of a small feeder and climbed laboriously to the top for a better view of the puzzling phenomenon.