"The worst of it came when, without a bit of warnin', without our even knowin' where we were, the hard crust of the snow gave way beneath us, an' the sled, the dogs, and myself fell headlong down a slope an' into a stream of runnin' water, the sled upside down, of course."
"He saved himself from goin' into the water, an' it was a good thing that he did, for he was able to help in pullin' us out. But, from one point of view, the accident was a help, for it told the Indian just where we were. There was only one stream of that size in that neighborhood, an' until we found it, we were hopelessly lost. But from that time we knew that the settlement we were headin' for was straight up the stream, an' all we had to do was to follow it. But it was a race for life, in order to get to camp before frozen clothin' and various frostbites crippled me entirely."
"But how about the dogs?" queried Hamilton. "I should think it would be worse for them than for you."
"A 'husky' can stand just about anythin' in the way of cold," he said, "an' my leaders 'Tussle' and 'Bully' were a couple of wonders. Only one of the dogs gave out. Well, we made the camp finally, pretty well done up all round. The worst of it was, that when we come to unpack the sled--we did it with an ax because everythin' was frozen solid--the census pouch was missin'. Luckily there was no past work in it,--only blank schedules, information papers, an' things of that sort. So I made up the schedules on odd bits of paper and skins, as I told you, an' the supervisor copied them on the schedule to send in, an' that schedule you have in your hand is the copy of those very pieces of skin."
[Illustration: CAN WE MAKE CAMP? A last rush for shelter as the blizzard strikes, wiping out all landmarks.]
Hamilton glanced at the paper with redoubled interest.
"I suppose it was no use trying to get the pouch back," he said.
"I didn't think it would be," the Alaskan replied "but I tried to reach the place where the sled had been overturned, an' each time the weather drove me back. On the third day I got a chance to go with some Eskimos with reindeer to a little settlement about twenty miles off, an' so I went along and got the names there, comin' back on a reindeer sled. That's the only time I ever felt like Santa Claus. I'm sure I don't look it."