A couple of days of smooth water enabled the use of paddles and fair time was made, but after the junction with the Telugu River more shallow rapids and boulders were encountered, leading to more days of wading, continuing until they struck the main stream of the Colville, a river with a big head of water. But these various difficulties had delayed matters considerably, and not until August 10th did the divergence of the channels of the river show that the delta of the Colville was reached, where they hoped to find the Eskimo village of Nigaluk. "What kind of a place is it?" asked Roger, as they encamped for the night. "It is the metropolis of the Arctic Ocean," said Rivers with a smile; "the biggest city between Point Barrow and Hudson's Bay." The boy was not taken in by the description, for he had a lively remembrance of Alaskan centers of population, and knew that anything more than four huts was considered as a post of no small importance, while one hut, all by itself, was deemed worthy of a place on the map. But though he did not expect a large place, he watched eagerly enough the next day for this Arctic city, wondering what kind of houses would be built to withstand the rigors of an Arctic winter. But the solitary canoe went on and on, up this channel and down another, and still no village was seen. All the next two days the party searched, but to no purpose; apparently the Arctic metropolis was not there. The matter was extremely serious, for the provisions were almost exhausted, and on the evening of August 12th the wind switched again to the northward, and the first of the winter's snows hurled itself at them. "If this is the middle of August!" exclaimed Roger, shivering, "what must it be like here in the middle of January?" [Illustration: WINTER'S THREAT ALMOST FULFILLED. The shores of the Arctic Ocean, where the tundra-covered coastal plain extends unbroken for thousands of miles. _Photograph by U.S.G.S._] "Nobody knows exactly," was the geologist's reply, "for no white man has ever wintered here. We shall be the first unless we find Nigaluk in a hurry. And I doubt if we can spare the time, so to-morrow we will have to go down this channel to the ocean. I don't like this weather, for if the winter sets in early we may be caught even yet." But when, the next day, the party arrived at Harrison Bay, at the mouth of the river, Roger's heart sank within him at the prospect. Cold, bleak, and gray, the waters of the Arctic Ocean stretched before him, a steady swell breaking on the tundra shores that line it without a break for hundreds of miles. The wind, blowing from the north, was kicking up a vicious, snappy sea, the tops of the waves showing their teeth, and upon the horizon the white blink of the ice.