Next day we abandoned the camp, leaving all standing, and, putting our packs upon a Yukon sled, rejecting the ice-creepers, and resuming our rough-locked snow-shoes, we started down the glacier in soft, cloudy weather to our base camp. Again it had been wiser to have waited till night, that the snow bridges over the crevasses might be at their hardest; but we could not wait. Every mind was occupied with Johnny. We were two weeks overstayed of the time we had told him to expect our return, and we knew not what might have happened to the boy. The four of us on one rope, Karstens leading and Walter at the gee-pole, we went down the first sharp descents of the glaciers without much trouble, the new, soft snow making a good brake for the sled. But lower down the crevasses began to give us trouble. The snow bridges were melted at their edges, and sometimes the sled had to be lowered down to the portion that still held and hauled up at the other side. Sometimes a bridge gave way as its edge was cautiously ventured upon with the snow-shoes, and we had to go far over to the glacier wall to get round the crevasse. The willows with which we had staked the trail still stood, sometimes just their tips appearing above the new snow, and they were a good guide, though we often had to leave the old trail. At last the crevasses were all passed and we reached the lower portion of the glacier, which is free of them. Then the snow grew softer and softer, and our moccasined feet were soon wet through. Large patches of the black shale with which much of this glacier is covered were quite bare of snow, and the sled had to be hauled laboriously across them. Then we began to encounter pools of water, which at first we avoided, but they soon grew so numerous that we went right through them. [Sidenote: Flowers]