"A man's got to be a pretty good prize-fighter who will go in the ring with an Alaskan blizzard," said the geologist, amusedly, "and the worst of it for you is that all your wounds are in the back. I should think you would have a few bruises in the morning, for you went down like a Jack-in-the-Box goes up." The snow was falling steadily and heavily as the two walked back to the tent, and Roger remarked: "This will make the trails heavy going, won't it?" "It looks to me," replied the other, "as though it would make all travel impossible. If this storm had struck a few days earlier, or had we been a few days later in getting here, the chances are that the delay would have been considerable." "How much, do you suppose?" asked the boy. The leader of the party shrugged his shoulders. "If it should prove a heavy snowfall," he said, "and had it struck us on the Sushitna, it might have gone far to spoil the entire season's work. You see a snowfall of four or five inches on the level can be whipped up into drifts fifteen and twenty feet in height, not only hiding the trail, but making conditions through which the dogs cannot flounder until a crust is formed. "Then you see, Doughty, it's getting late for a good snow-crust, and we might have had to wait down there until the break-up. Then, instead of going on down the Jack River as we shall be able to do now, we would have had to track our way up Indian Creek against all the force of the spring floods, portage across the pass with the ground in bad condition, and then find little water in the Jack River instead of reaching here comfortably by 'mushing.'" "It's lucky then," said Roger, "that we're not later in getting here." "It's not," objected Rivers. "It may be lucky that the storm didn't strike earlier, but it isn't luck that brought us to this place in so much shorter time than had been allotted. That wasn't luck, that was work. I've noticed, too, that luck and labor go together oftener than luck and loafing." On reaching the tent they found everything snuggled down for winter quarters, and Roger was subjected to some mild chaffing over what Magee called his "one round bout with a gale," but the lad took it good-naturedly enough, knowing from previous experience that his turn might come. He promised himself, however, that before the trip was over he would notice some slight misadventure on the part of others which would enable him to return the compliment of banter.