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National Geographic : 1912 Jul
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nearly 300 miles, my train of 56 horses averaged about 16 miles a day for 17 days, but the trail was frozen and hard and frequent caches of grain a were on the line of travel. Another time, late in the au tumn, coming from 30 miles north of the Arctic Circle to the Yukon River, we were 23 i days on the trail, a distance of not more than 200 miles. Of _ the 75 horses with which we z started, only 44 reached the . river. 0 Eight days out from the Yukon we abandoned every- r thing possible in the way of i camp equipment; six days out and every man in the detach ment of 30 men was forced to z carry his 20 pounds; four days = out, in a blinding snow-storm, \ one of the topographers set out to get a train of 12 horses which had preceded the main " train. He started at io one morning, reaching the Yukon & < camp in time for breakfast the next morning. He had < forded two raging torrents in the night and crossed a high ° summit deep in snow. The relief train met us two days out, bringing the precious 8°g grain. In summer one can fight mosquitoes and keep fairly v comfortable, but in the long ' retreat after the dark nights > have come, when snow covers the trail, when ice is thick a enough to just break throughZ with the weight of man, when the wolves howl around the . camp, when in the morning o huge fires must be built to thaw out tents and pack-rig ging, while packers freeze their fingers tying packs on de jected and shivering ponies then the ti-rue spirit of the man is manifested and the "chee chako," as the tenderfoot is called, shows whether he is x worthy of the life of a sur-
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