That night was a long way off yet, however; we had other risks to run, other labours. Here were two islands in the river, and the current, running like a mill-race and burdened with ice cakes, swept around the shore of one of them leaving the passage between them quite dry. There was no shore ice at all where the channel was, and it was so ugly-looking a reach that had there been any there I am sure we should not have ventured it. There was nothing for it but to drag the sled half a mile over the gravel, and we did it, the most heart-breaking labour of the whole trip. It took us exactly an hour to make that half mile. William did not know the trick of the split willows either, so we all four of us sweated for our ignorance. Shortly after, our guide pointed out the spot where poor Ericson's frozen body was found, two years and eight months before. [Sidenote: A NARROW ESCAPE] [Sidenote: RUBBER ICE] Near the Kornuchaket (or the mouth of Old Man Creek), where the Koyukuk receives a considerable tributary, we approached the most dangerous travelling we had had yet. The river here is swift and deep, and there are several islands set in it. Most of its surface was frozen, but the ice was very thin. William stopped the procession before we reached the bad stretch and went hastily over a part of it. Under his single weight we could see the ice-sheet undulating. It had been our rule that ice was not safe unless it took three blows of the axe to bring water, but this ice gave water at a blow. When William returned he made quite an harangue, which Arthur interpreted. He thought we could make it past the mouth of the creek, and if we could we should find good going to Moses' Village. But we must go just as fast as we could travel; we must not let the sled stop an instant. The ice would bend and crack; but he thought if we went quickly we could get across. So for nearly a quarter of a mile we rushed that sled over "rubber" ice that swayed and cracked and yielded under our feet and under the sled, until we reached the bank of one of the islands, and then again we launched her and ran with her to the shore. Once one of my feet broke through, and immediately the water welled up all around--with the steamboat channel underneath--but without pause we increased our speed and made the strong shore ice safely at last. No man will ever doubt the plasticity, the "viscosity" of ice, as it used to be styled in the old glacier controversies, who has passed over the "rubber" ice that forms under certain circumstances and at certain seasons on these rivers.