The next day a storm kept us in camp, but on the 9th we pulled out again and found the sledging in a most wretched condition. The country was very hilly and the snow entirely gone in many places, so that it occasioned much halting and considerable trouble to pick out a route by which the sled could move at all. About noon, however, we were rejoiced by reaching the head of a small river or creek by a perilous flying switch down a very long and steep hill. One of the sleds was overthrown, but fortunately it sustained no material damage, and was soon righted and landed on the ice below. One more flying run and we were safe upon the river. We had to congratulate ourselves upon the good fortune by which we discovered this river, for the land was getting more rugged all the time, and we began to fear that the snow, which was disappearing very rapidly, would soon be in such a condition that we could not travel at all, and we be left so near and get beyond reach of our destination. The range of hills from which we descended to the river was from eight hundred to a thousand feet high and their peaks entirely denuded of snow. Lieutenant Schwatka decided to keep to the river under all circumstances, though at present it was impossible to tell whether it was the Castor and Pollux or a branch of Back's River. It proved to be the latter, and quite an important branch, which we followed for upward of ninety miles, leaving it only when it turned due south and at a right angle to our course. The entire length is 110 or 120 miles. It empties into Cockburn Bay, on the eastern shore of Back's River. Lieutenant Schwatka named it Hayes River, in honor of the President. On the 11th of May we killed seven reindeer, and on the 13th nine. The country seems to be filled with game, and nearly every day we saw two or three large herds. Our dogs get well fed, and are really in finer condition than when we left Camp Daly. We had the misfortune to lose one of our best dogs, Toekelegeto, Toolooah's leader, on the night of the 13th, who choked to death with a piece of bone in his throat. He had eaten a piece of the shoulder-blade of the reindeer, which is thin and breaks into fine splinters. The Inuits usually hide this bone in the snow, as they say such accidents are frequent, especially when the dogs eat rapidly, as they always do when there is a number together. [Illustration: THE SOURCES OF THE HAYES RIVER.]