It was necessary to keep the machine going continuously, for during a stop of even a few minutes the engine would freeze and the oil congeal. At one time their gasoline gave out and they had to stop twenty miles away from a road house they had expected to reach. A dog team was found and sent on to the road house, but while they waited the engine froze and the oil became stiff, and they had to build a fire under the car with wood from the forest before they could start off again. When they had completed the journey and returned to Dawson the bill for the road appropriation was just coming up for action. The news of their trip was telegraphed to Ottawa and the bill was passed. CHAPTER XXXII FROM WHITE HORSE TO DAWSON Within the last fifteen days I have travelled by foot, by rail, and by steamer from the headwaters of the Yukon to Dawson, a distance of five hundred miles. The river has one of its sources in the coast range of mountains only fifteen miles from the Pacific Ocean. It starts as a trickling stream of icy cold water and winds its way down the hills to Lake Bennett. On the White Pass Railway I rode twenty-five miles along the east shore of that lake to Caribou, and thence for an hour or so farther to White Horse. That town is at the head of steam navigation on the Yukon, from where one can go for more than two thousand miles to the mouth of the river on Bering Sea, not far from the Arctic Ocean. The Yukon makes one think of Mark Twain’s description of the Mississippi, which he knew so well as a pilot. He said: “If you will peel an apple in one long paring and throw it over your head, the shape it will have when it falls on the floor will represent the ordinary curves of the river.” Let me take you with me on my trip down this looping river. In its upper reaches, it winds about like a snake. It narrows and widens, now measuring only a few hundred feet from shore to shore, and now almost as broad as a lake. It is full of sand banks, and there are rocky cañons through which our boat shoots, its sides almost grazing the cliffs. Our ship down the Yukon from White Horse is the little steamer _Selkirk_, drawing between four and five feet of water. Nevertheless, it is so skilfully handled that it twists and turns with the current and at times swings about as though on a pivot. Now the pilot throws the boat across the stream and lets the current carry it along, and now he drives it through the rapids, putting on steam to make the paddles go faster.