The next day was full of toil and difficulty. There was no good ice to make fine time over that day. Starting in the grey dawn, for mile after mile we had to haul the sled over crumbly shell-ice that broke through to gravel; and when the shell-ice was done we came to a new bend where a rapid current washed a steep mud bank. There was just a little shelf of ice, but the brush overhung it so that the passage of the sled was not possible. William and Arthur started with the axes to clear away the brush, but it seemed to me foolish to do that unless the ledge held out and led somewhere, for the turn of the bank threw it out of sight. So they went forward cautiously along that ledge to the end--and an end they found, sure enough, so that had we followed the axemen with the sled we should have had to creep all the way back again. There was nothing for it but to cut another land trail on a bench that we could reach where the sled was stopped but that could not be reached at all farther on. A long and slow and laborious job it was, that took most of the morning, to cut that trail and then get the load over it to ice again. By noon we were opposite the Red Mountain, one of the well-known Koyukuk landmarks, and on the site of an old Indian fishing camp. William and Arthur had made a great fire when we came up, and we heated some beans and made some tea and ate lunch. A mile farther on was the cabin of a white man, and we paid him a brief visit and got a little tea from him, for ours was nearly gone. It did me good to hear him sing the praises of Deaconess Carter, the trained nurse at the mission. She had taken him in, crippled with rheumatism, and had cured him. Already the new mission was proving a boon to whites as well as natives. We made no more than four or five miles farther when, coming to spruce with no more in sight for a long distance, we pitched the tent, all very tired. That night the thermometer went to 5° below zero, the coldest weather of the season so far. As a consequence the next day we had a new and very disagreeable trouble. The cold weather, by increasing the amount of running ice in the still open stretches, had brought about a jam that had raised the level of the water and caused an overflow of the ice--a very common phenomenon of a closing river. We picked our way wet-foot much of the day, and towards evening came to a complete _impasse_ in the middle of the river, with open water in front and on one hand, and new thin ice on the other. So we had to turn round and go back again a long way, the mid-river being the only traversable place, until, when it seemed that we should have to go round another bend to reach a crossing, Arthur proposed that he and William, who wore mukluks, should carry the doctor and me, who wore moccasins across the overflow, and then rush the sled across; and this we did, wetting its contents somewhat, however. We camped immediately, for we had landed on impassable gravel. [Sidenote: THE RED MOUNTAIN]