like a sharp battle, so rapidly and incessantly were the shots
delivered. It clearly illustrates the advantage of breech-loaders and
magazine guns when game is plentiful and much is required.

[Illustration: THE GREAT BEND IN HAYES RIVER.]

The next day a storm kept us in camp, but on the 9th we pulled out
again and found the sledging in a most wretched condition. The country
was very hilly and the snow entirely gone in many places, so that it
occasioned much halting and considerable trouble to pick out a route by
which the sled could move at all. About noon, however, we were rejoiced
by reaching the head of a small river or creek by a perilous flying
switch down a very long and steep hill. One of the sleds was
overthrown, but fortunately it sustained no material damage, and was
soon righted and landed on the ice below. One more flying run and we
were safe upon the river. We had to congratulate ourselves upon the
good fortune by which we discovered this river, for the land was
getting more rugged all the time, and we began to fear that the snow,
which was disappearing very rapidly, would soon be in such a condition
that we could not travel at all, and we be left so near and get beyond
reach of our destination. The range of hills from which we descended to
the river was from eight hundred to a thousand feet high and their
peaks entirely denuded of snow. Lieutenant Schwatka decided to keep to
the river under all circumstances, though at present it was impossible
to tell whether it was the Castor and Pollux or a branch of Back's
River. It proved to be the latter, and quite an important branch, which
we followed for upward of ninety miles, leaving it only when it turned
due south and at a right angle to our course. The entire length is 110
or 120 miles. It empties into Cockburn Bay, on the eastern shore of
Back's River. Lieutenant Schwatka named it Hayes River, in honor of the