One morning, about half-way from Iditarod to Seward, we left the fine cabin of French Joe, on the South Fork of the Kuskoquim River, under the two beautiful peaks, Mts. Egypt and Pyramid. We were making for Rainy Pass over the Alaskan Range. What follows is an extract from an account I wrote at the time. The day out from Joe's I meet with my first disaster. We have nineteen miles of absolutely clear ice on the South Fork of the Kuskoquim. The river is full of air-holes and open riffles. The dogs swing along at a ripping pace, digging their toe nails into the hard ice, the sled slipping sideways and sliding dangerously near to the open places. Breeze often has to run ahead at full speed to choose a route, for there is no trail on the ice. Half-way up the river I "get gay," as Breeze calls it. I leave the handle-bars to find a route, and fall down hard on the smooth ice. A sharp pang strikes through the small of my back as if from a spear-thrust. I get up and go along, thinking the pain will cease, but soon I realize that I am in the grip of an old enemy, lumbago. From this point on to Seward I cannot make a move without pain, sometimes so great that I gasp for breath. At night in the roadhouse I have great trouble in getting into my bunk, and sometimes Breeze has to lift me out in the morning. Were I at home I would be in bed for a couple of weeks with doctors and nurses fussing over me, but it is just as well that I cannot stop. I take the philosophy of an old fellow in the "Rainy Pass Roadhouse" near the summit of the range, who says the best cure for a lame back is to "keep on a-mushin'"! Beyond Rainy Pass we drop into the canyon of Happy River, and here we have our famous moose-hunt. Soon after we enter the gorge we come upon its tracks--a big bull-moose. We have already traveled nearly thirty miles to-day, and are anxious to make the roadhouse twelve or fifteen miles further on; and now, here comes this big, blundering beast to poke our trail full of deep holes and excite our dogs. He is running ahead of us. The snow is five or six feet deep and he goes in almost to his back at every step. The walls of the canyon are sheer and he cannot escape up its side. The river turns and winds, and here and there are little patches of level ground, thick with large spruce trees. For three miles we do not catch sight of the moose, but our dogs show that he is on ahead. In spite of my lame back I have to struggle on in front of them and bat "Leader" in the face with my cap, Breeze standing on the brake to keep them from running away. The moose tracks fill our trail for a while, smashing it all to pieces, then veer sideways to a little patch of woods, and the dogs go pell-mell in the moose track, burying our sled out of sight in the deep snow. Then we have to haul them around and lift the sled on the track again, and try to get them along the trail.