We
must come back before the river ran free. So here and there we
cached grub, that our sleds might be lightened and there be no
chance of famine on the back trip. At the McQuestion there were
three men, and near them we built a cache, as also did we at the
Mayo, where was a hunting camp of a dozen Pellys which had
crossed the divide from the south.
'After that, as we went on into the east, we saw no men; only the
sleeping river, the moveless forest, and the White Silence of the
North. As I say, the way was long and the trail unpacked.
Sometimes, in a day's toil, we made no more than eight miles, or
ten, and at night we slept like dead men. And never once did they
dream that I was Naass, head man of Akatan, the righter of
wrongs.
'We now made smaller caches, and in the nighttime it was a small
matter to go back on the trail we had broken and change them in
such way that one might deem the wolverines the thieves. Again
there be places where there is a fall to the river, and the water
is unruly, and the ice makes above and is eaten away beneath.
'In such a spot the sled I drove broke through, and the dogs; and
to him and Unga it was ill luck, but no more.
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