Joe estimated that they made their fifteen miles the first day. The tundra was smooth, and had just snow enough for good traveling. The next, the dogs, unused to their masters, balked, and they hardly did five, to their great vexation. The day after was better, and with patience and firmness they taught the animals that they must obey. Then some rough traveling bothered them. Still they got on, and at the end of the first week they had probably eighty miles to their credit. They were hopeful, and planned to do more the next, but they made Sunday a day of rest. It was a solemn thing, this cutting loose from friends and supplies and braving the unknown interior, and it made them thoughtful of observances that they had neglected in igloo and topek. Harry took from his inner pocket the little Bible that he had carried all through the trip, and, opening its pages, stained with Bering Sea water, at random, found the book of Psalms. He read aloud to Joe, and the simple grandeur of thought and eloquent beauty of phrase steadied and heartened them both. Then they talked long of their home and friends, and, resting in the shelter of their tent while the dogs lay content in the snow outside, felt that the observance of the day had been worthy, and a wise thing. They made it their custom thereafter. Yet in all this talk of home Harry never mentioned Maisie to Joe. But that is not saying he did not think of her. The fourth day of the next week carried them over a range of hills to a second, higher table-land. They had been helped in their journey by a river, on whose level, snow-covered ice they worked southward at a good rate of speed. Its course seemed fairly direct, and they made in speed what they lost by not going in a straight line. The four days must have added nearly another fifty miles to their journey, and Joe was jubilant. He began to predict that they would reach the Yukon in good season, and get out by steamer from St. Michael that fall. The very next morning they waked cold, in spite of their furs, and found a gray and sunless dawn, across which a keen north wind sang. They hitched up and pressed on, but the sky grew grayer, and soon the world was a whirling mass of snow. They drifted before this wind for a mile or two, the snow getting deeper, and their progress slower every moment. Soon it was half knee deep, and the load began to be heavy for the dogs. Now and then they looked up at the boys wistfully, as if wondering why they did not seek shelter. For two hours they struggled on, not so much because they wished to as that on the level plain there seemed to be no cover.