"Makes you proud to have been an enumerator, doesn't it?" asked the boy. "But it always seems difficult to realize hardship unless you have been there."
"I spent a winter in Alaska," said Barnes emphatically, "and I can feel the thrill of it in every line. He knows what he's writing of, too, this man. Hear how he describes it: 'All the men in the service,'" he continued, "'covered hundreds of miles over the ice and snow, in weather ranging from 30 to 70 degrees below zero, the average temperature probably being about 40 below. Because of the absolute lack of beaten trails--' I wonder," he broke off, "if any one who hasn't been there can grasp what it means!"
"No beaten trail," Barnes said reminiscently, "means where stunted willows emphasize by their starved and shivering appearance the nearness of the timber; where the snow-drifts, each with its little feather of drifting snow sheering from its crest, are heaped high; where the snow underfoot is unbroken; where under snow-filled skies a wind studded with needle-sharp ice crystals blows a perfect gale; where the lonely and frozen desolation is peopled only by the haunting shape of fear that next morning a wan and feeble sun may find you staggering still blindly on, hopelessly lost, or fallen beside a drift where the winter's snows must melt before your fate is known."
He stopped abruptly and went on with his schedule. Hamilton worked on in silence. Presently, as though there had been no pause, Barnes resumed his quotation from the supervisor's report:
"'Because of the absolute lack of beaten trails, and the fact that the snow lies so loosely on the ground like so much salt, no matter what its depth may be, it was necessary through all their work to snow-shoe ahead of the dog-teams. When one considers their isolation,--often traveling for days without other shelter than a tent and fur robes--it can be understood what sacrifices some of these men made to visit far-away prospectors' cabins and claims. However, no man who travels in this part of the country ever considers that there is any hardship, unless there is loss of life, and they take their work stoically and good-naturedly, though they drop in their tracks at the end of the day.'"