Two hours of cursing and exertion got the harnesses into shape, and the wound-stiffened team was under way, struggling painfully over the hardest part of the trail they had yet encountered, and for that matter, the hardest between them and Dawson.
The Thirty Mile River was wide open.

Its wild water defied the frost, and it was in the eddies only and in the quiet places that the ice held at all.

Six days of exhausting toil were required to cover those thirty terrible miles.

And terrible they were, for every foot of them was accomplished at the risk of life to dog and man.

A dozen times, Perrault, nosing the way broke through the ice bridges, being saved by the long pole he carried, which he so held that it fell each time across the hole made by his body.