nvulsive
contortions, and when once I lay down on the trail that I might view the
scene through the lowest stratum of the agitated air, every peak shot up
suddenly far into the sky like the outspreading of one's fingers, to
subside as suddenly as I rose to my feet again. The psalmist's query
came naturally to the mind, "Why hop ye so ye hills?" and our Kobuk boy
Roxy, whose enjoyment of fine landscapes and strange sights was always
a pleasure to witness, answered the unspoken question. "God make
mountains dance because spring come," he said prettily enough.

Then we crossed another portage and cut off ten miles of river by it,
and when we reached the river again I wanted to stop, for it grew
towards evening and here was good camping-ground. But we had lately met
some travelling Kobuks and they had told Roxy of a cabin "just little
way" farther on, and I yielded to the rest of the company, who would
push on to it and thus avoid the necessity of making camp. That native
"just little way" is worse than the Scotch "mile and a bittock"; indeed,
the natives have poor notion of distance in general, and miles have as
vague meaning to them as kilometres have to the average Anglo-Saxon.

[Sidenote: A BELATED CAMP]

On and on we pushed, mile after mile, and still no cabin. In the
gathering dusk we would continually think we saw it; half-fallen trees
or sloping branches simulating snow-covered gables. At last it grew
quite dark, and when there was general agreement that we must seek the
cabin no longer, but camp, there was no place to camp in. Either the
bank was inaccessible or there was lack of dry timber. We went on thus,
seeking rest and finding none, until seven-thirty, and then made camp by
candle-light, in a poor place at that, having trudged thirty-five miles
that day. A night-made camp is always an uncomfortable camp, and an
uncomfortable camp means a miserable night, which to-morrow must pay
for. We did not get to bed till nearly midnight, and it was
nine-forty-five when we started out next morning, and we made only
fifteen miles that day.

The Kobuk valley continued to open out wider and wider and the mountains
right and left to recede. The Jade Mountains were now dim and distant
behind us, and new ranges were coming into view. The people on this
lower river are very few. It was just about one hundred miles from Long
Beach when we reached the next native village, a miserable collection of
pole dwellings, half undergr