On the 14th of April the thermometer rose above the freezing-point in the middle of the day for the first time, and as we remained in camp while the hunters went ahead to pick out a better road, we gladly embraced the opportunity to dry our stockings. It is one of the greatest discomforts of Arctic travel that the exercise of walking wets one's fur stockings with perspiration. At night they freeze, and it is anything but an agreeable sensation to put bare feet into stockings filled with ice, which is a daily experience in winter travelling. But it is astonishing how soon one gets accustomed to that sort of thing, and how little he minds it after a while. The warmth of the feet soon thaws the ice, and then a wet stocking is nearly as warm as a dry one, except in the wind. During the next day we were passing through a high rolling country, but with plenty of snow and not bad sledging. We found the descent of the hills always greater than the ascent, and presumed that we were approaching the bed of Wager River, as our route crossed the lower branch of that river, as mapped, well down toward the fork. The slope of these hills was usually so steep that we had to take the dogs off the sledges and let them run down upon the lakes by gravity. This was an exciting but not very dangerous method of travelling. So rapid would be the descent, that we had all we could do to hold on to the sleds trying to retard their progress. Some would be taking steps ten feet long, while others, with their feet planted straight out before them, were ploughing up the snow and scattering it in every direction. The dogs followed behind the sleds, running and barking, some of them, entangled in their harness, rolling over and dragged along by their swifter comrades. We were gratified to see plenty of reindeer nearly every day, as it relieved our anxiety concerning our commissariat. The ice upon the fresh-water lakes where we encamped averaged about six and a half feet. An occasional salmon is caught through the water hole by one of the women, who usually drop a line in after the hole is made. [Illustration: DOWN-HILL WITH THE SLEDGES.]