They travelled till ten o'clock the night they reached Selkirk,
and at six next morning they plunged ahead into the next stretch
of wilderness of nearly five hundred miles that lay between
Selkirk and Dyea. A second cold snap came on, but cold or warm
it was all the same, an unbroken trail. When the thermometer
went down to fifty below, it was even harder to travel, for at
that low temperature the hard frost-crystals were more like
sand-grains in the resistance they offered to the sled runners.
The dogs had to pull harder than over the same snow at twenty or
thirty below zero. Daylight increased the day's travel to
thirteen hours. He jealously guarded the margin he had gained,
for he knew there were difficult stretches to come.
It was not yet quite midwinter, and the turbulent Fifty Mile
River vindicated his judgment. In many places it ran wide open,
with precarious rim-ice fringing it on either side. In numerous
places, where the water dashed against the steep-sided bluffs,
rim-ice was unable to form. They turned and twisted, now
crossing the river, now coming back again, sometimes making half
a dozen attempts before they found a way over a particularly bad
stretch.
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