On the second night, fifty more miles to the good, they camped in
the vicinity of the boundary between Alaska and the Northwest
Territory. The rest of the journey, save the last short stretch
to Dyea, would be travelled on Canadian territory. With the hard
trail, and in the absence of fresh snow, Daylight planned to make
the camp of Forty Mile on the fourth night. He told Kama as
much, but on the third day the temperature began to rise, and
they knew snow was not far off; for on the Yukon it must get warm
in order to snow. Also, on this day, they encountered ten miles
of chaotic ice-jams, where, a thousand times, they lifted the
loaded sled over the huge cakes by the strength of their arms and
lowered it down again. Here the dogs were well-nigh useless, and
both they and the men were tried excessively by the roughness of
the way. An hour's extra running that night caught up only part
of the lost time.

In the morning they awoke to find ten inches of snow on their
robes. The dogs were buried under it and were loath to leave
their comfortable nests. This new snow meant hard going. The
sled runners would not slide over it so well, while one of the
men must go in advance of the dogs and pack it down with
snowshoes so that they should not wallow. Quite different was it
from the ordinary snow known to those of the Southland. It was
hard, and fine, and dry. It was more like sugar. Kick it, and
it flew with a hissing noise like sand. There was no cohesion
among the particles, and it could not be moulded into snow-
balls. It was not composed of flakes, but of crystals--tiny,
geometrical frost-crystals. In truth, it was not snow, but
frost.