comfortable and free from any severe hardships.

We certainly had great reason to be thankful, and that night before we
rolled into our blankets I read aloud by the light of our camp fire
from my little Bible the one hundred and seventh Psalm, in
thanksgiving.

The next morning before starting forward we paddled out to the rapid,
in the vain hope that we might be able to recover some of the lost
articles from the bottom of the river, but at the place where the
spill had occurred the water was too swift and deep for us to do
anything, and we were forced to abandon the attempt and reluctantly
resume our journey without the things.

That night we felt sorely the loss of the axes. Our camp was pitched
in a spot where no loose wood was to be found save very small sticks,
insufficient in quantity for an adequate fire in the open, for the
evening was cold. We could not pitch our tent wigwam fashion with an
opening at the top for the smoke to escape, as to do that several
poles were necessary, and we had no means of cutting them. However,
with the expectation that enough smoke would find its way out of the
stovepipe hole to permit us to remain inside, we built a small round
Indian fire in the center of the tent. We managed to endure the smoke
and warm ourselves while tea was making, but the experiment proved a
failure and was not to be resorted to again, for I feared it might
result in an attack of smoke-blindness. This is an affliction almost
identical in effect to snow-blindness. I had suffered from it in the
first days of my wandering alone in the Susan Valley in the winter of
1903, and knew what it meant, and that an attack of it would preclude
traveling while it lasted, to say nothing of the pain that it would