So the party proceeded to lighten their only canoe. Everything which was of weight and not absolutely essential was cached and a cairn built over it, not with any intention of coming back, but so that it should be available if any other traveler should ever pass that way. Since it was so difficult to transport provisions and camp conveniences at such a distance, it was felt that it would be sheer wickedness to let anything be destroyed. "But people might steal it!" exclaimed the boy. "To take what you need isn't stealing in this country," answered the geologist. "You are supposed to help yourself if you are in need, and you are expected to give to the uttermost if you find any one else in need. This part of the world is too far away from civilization for any 'dog eat dog' methods. Here, being uncivilized, men are more or less charitably disposed toward each other." "That's a cynical speech, Rivers," said the topographer. "Cynical or not, it's true," the chief answered. "Sure, it's true," commented Magee, who had been listening. "If I'm hungry in a big modern city, and I open a man's door, walk to his pantry, feed myself and a dozen hungry men; and what's more, walk away with enough provisions for a month, where would I land?" "In jail," said Roger. "Sure, an' I would. But that's what you can do out here." "Well," said the chief, "I wish I were sure of being able to do it at Nigaluk." Travel, however, was very different in the one over-loaded canoe, and Rivers was not willing to allow any chances to be taken. The slightest evidence of shoal, rapid, or boulders meant wading. For the next three days, therefore, two men, each at one of the bows of the canoe, waded down the stream, finding out, with their shins mainly, where were boulders near enough to the surface of the water to strike the canoe. On the second day of this sort of work, moreover, the temperature dropped fifty-two degrees in about six hours, and from a hot sun and humid air with a thermometer at eighty-eight degrees at noon, by dusk it was only four degrees above freezing with a driving gale and a stinging rain. While many camp conveniences had been left behind to lighten the canoe, a strip of canvas had been retained, and this was propped up with willow sticks in such wise as to keep some of the rain off. But through the night the gale howled from the north, and the rain drove in with the sharpness of a whip-lash, so that the first faint light of dawn found every one ready for the start, as at least it was warmer moving about than lying under that pitiless sky. The only gleam of comfort was that it gave one day's respite from the eternal mosquitoes. The second day the norther abated, and fair weather returned, bringing with it, of course, the close personal attention of the mosquitoes of the lower tundra, though these were rapidly thinning out.