Faint as the trail had been, it had been sufficient to point out to the men where conditions were favorable, or at least possible, but after leaving Kroto the signs disappeared entirely. For a couple of hundred yards, perhaps, there might be smooth going, then the party would be brought to an abrupt halt by a belt of forest, through which perhaps a way would have to be made, or around which a detour would be necessary, consuming a great deal of time. Generally it was possible to make some distance on the river ice, though that was extremely rough and bad traveling, and days would be spent in passing from one form of progress to another, much labor being expended, but the party going forward all the time. What made it seem the harder to Roger was that it was still cold enough to require heavy clothing while going ahead on the trail, yet being so warmly clad rendered the labor at difficult places very fatiguing, and if he perspired, the cold wind afterward chilled him to the bone. It was speedily evident that the rapid march of the first few days was no true index of the time to be consumed on the trip, for while the distance from Kroto to the mouth of the Chulitna, the great tributary of the river up which they were proceeding, was the same as from Kroto to Tyonok, it took the party exactly three times as long. It was not until March 25th that the Chulitna was crossed and the journey up the higher portion of the river begun. But each day's travel now brought the mountains closer upon them, and the banks of the river narrowed. The flat plain of the lower valley was disappearing and the mountains sloped nearer the water's edge. On the farther shore the Talkeetna range, isolated from all other mountains, rose almost sheer from the water, while on the shore the party traveled, though beyond the Chulitna, the great Alaskan range towered up into the clouds, Mt. McKinley, the highest peak in the United States, rearing his 20,300 feet, snow-capped and glacier-bearing, statuesque above all lower eminences. Rivers, however, silent and determined, wasted no time or energy, but pushed on relentlessly every minute of the daylight, and often in dawn and dusk, while the light was yet dim. With this persistence it was but April 10th when a halt was called at a little cabin, built at the mouth of Indian Creek, and which had been used by a former Survey party, who had ascended the Sushitna and Indian Creek in the summer by canoes. It had taken that party over three months, while Rivers had been less than half that time. [Illustration: FAREWELL TO CIVILIZATION. One of the dog teams leaving Kroto for the Sushitna River Trail. _Photograph by U.S.G.S._]