streams again so soon as streams are available. The
country is notably well watered and the waterways are the natural
highways. The more frequented routes gradually cut out the serpentine
bends of the rivers by land trails, but in the wilder parts of the
country travel sticks to the ice.

Our course, therefore, lay up the Chatanika River and one of its
tributaries until the Tanana-Yukon watershed was reached; then through
the mountains, crossing two steep summits to the Yukon slope, and down
that slope by convenient streams to the Yukon River at Circle City.

[Sidenote: THE GOLD TRAIN]

We set out on the 27th of November with six dogs and a "basket" sled and
about five hundred pounds' weight of load, including tent and stove,
bedding, clothes for the winter, grub box and its equipment, and dog
feed. The dogs were those that I had used the previous winter, with one
exception. The leader had come home lame from the fish camp where he had
been boarded during the summer, and, despite all attentions, the
lameness had persisted; so he must be left behind, and there was much
difficulty in securing another leader. A recent stampede to a new mining
district had advanced the price of dogs and gathered up all the good
ones, so it was necessary to hunt all over Fairbanks and pay a hundred
dollars for a dog that proved very indifferent, after all. "Jimmy" was a
handsome beast, the handsomest I ever owned and the costliest, but, as I
learned later from one who knew his history, had "travelled on his
looks all his life." He earned the name of "Jimmy the Fake."

Midway to Cleary "City," on the chief gold-producing creek of the
district, our first day's run, we encountered the gold train. For some
time previous a lone highwayman had robbed solitary miners on their way
to Fairbanks with gold-dust, and now a posse was organised that went the
rounds of the creeks and gathered up the dust and bore it on mule-back
to the bank, escorted by half a dozen armed and mounted men. Sawed-off
shotguns were the favourite weapons, and one judged them deadly enough
at short range. The heavy "pokes" galled the animals' backs, however
they might be slung, and the little procession wound slowly along, a man
ahead, a man behind, and four clustered round the treasure.

These raw, temporary mining towns are much alike the world over, one
supposes, though perhaps a little worse up here in the far north. It was
late at night when we reached the place, but