as 20 deg. colder at
least. Reaching the cabin, I kindled a fire and started back to meet the
teams. About a mile from the cabin I saw them, for, since the load was
distributed in the two sleds progress was much better; but by this time
it had grown so cold that the dogs were almost entirely obscured from
view by the clouds of steam that encompassed them. We hurried as best we
might and reached the cabin about eleven, and as soon as we were arrived
I took out the thermometer and let it lie long enough to get the
temperature of the air, and it read 65 deg. below zero. There had been no
atmospheric change at all; it was simply the most marked instance I ever
knew of the influence of altitude upon temperature. We had descended
perhaps three hundred feet, and in that distance had found a difference
of 27 deg. in temperature.

The cabin was a wretched shack without door or window and full of holes,
and in no part of it could one stand upright. We set ourselves to make
things as comfortable as possible, however, rigging up the canvas sled
cover for an outer door and a blanket for an inner door, and stopping up
the worst of the holes with sacking. Then we went out and cut fresh
spruce boughs to lie upon, and prospected around quite a while before we
found dry wood nearly a quarter of a mile away. It was quite a business
cutting that wood and packing the heavy sticks on one's shoulders,
through the brush and up and down the banks of the little creek where
it grew, on snow-shoes, at 65 deg. below zero.

Our Sabbath day's journey done, the hut safely reached and furnished
with fuel, we did not linger long after supper, but, evening prayer
said, went to bed as the most comfortable place in the still cold cabin,
thankful not to be in a tent in such severe weather.

The next day gave us fresh temperature fluctuations. At nine A. M. it
clouded and rose to 35 deg. below, by noon it had cleared again and the
thermometer fell to 55 deg. below, and at nine P. M. it stood once more at
65 deg. below. The milder weather of the morning sent all hands out breaking
trail, save myself, for with all our stuff in a cabin without a door it
was not wise to leave it altogether--a dog might break a chain and work
havoc--so I stayed behind in the little dark hovel, a candle burning all
day, and read some fifty pages of Boswell's _Life of Samuel Johnson_
over again. Some such little India-paper classic it is my habit to carry
each winter. Last year I