ught against it, though such is far from my common
habit. Even as I write, years after, the bitter rebellious reluctance
with which I turned south comes back to me. I wished the hospital at
Fairbanks at the bottom of the deep blue sea. I protested I would go on
and complete my journey, even though it involved "thawing out" at Tanana
and getting to Fairbanks on a steamboat in the summer. I had a free
hand, a kindly and complaisant bishop, and none would call me strictly
to account. Then I realised that it was merely pride of purpose,
self-willed resolution of accomplishing what had been essayed--in a
word, personal gratification for which I was fighting, and with that
realisation came surrender and sleep.

CHAPTER IV

THE SEWARD PENINSULA--CANDLE CREEK, COUNCIL, AND NOME

ONE day's rest was not a great deal after the distance we had come--and
that day fully occupied with business--but since Point Hope was
abandoned some sort of schedule must be made for the Seward Peninsula,
and where Sunday shall be spent is always an important factor in
arranging these itineraries. There was just time to reach Candle for the
next Sunday and it was decided to attempt it. Hans would accompany me as
far as Candle, where he hoped to find work. It meant two days of
forty-five miles each, for it is ninety miles from Kikitaruk to Candle,
but they told us it could be done.

So the reluctant adieus made, letters despatched, some mailed here at
Kikitaruk, some to be carried back to Bettles and mailed there--these
latter getting outside long before the former--we started at seven in
the morning instead of six, as we had planned, on the journey down the
shore of Kotzebue Sound. That hour's delay turned out to be a calamity
for us.

The trail was smooth along the beach until Cape Blossom was reached, and
I had the first riding of the winter, Hans and I alternately running and
jumping on the sled. There was a portage across the cape, and three or
four miles below it was the wreck of the river steamer _Riley_, which
used to make a voyage up the Kobuk with supplies for the miners at the
Shungnak. The thermometer was at -38 deg. when we started, and the same
light but keen breeze was blowing that had annoyed us on the other side
of the peninsula. What a barren, desolate region it is!--low rocks
sinking away to the dead level of the snow-field on the one hand,
nothing but the ice-field on the other.

[Sidenote: A BAD NIGHT]

[Sidenote: