winter. The Big and Little Salmon rivers were throwing mush-ice
into the main river as they passed, and, below the riffles, anchor-
ice arose from the river bottom and coated the surface with crystal
scum. Night and day the rim-ice grew, till, in quiet places, it
extended out a hundred yards from shore. And Old Tarwater, with
all his clothes on, sat by the stove and kept the fire going.
Night and day, not daring to stop for fear of the imminent freeze-
up, they dared to run, an increasing mushiness of ice running with
them.

"What ho, old hearty?" Liverpool would call out at times.

"Cheer O," Old Tarwater had learned to respond.

"What can I ever do for you, son, in payment?" Tarwater, stoking
the fire, would sometimes ask Liverpool, beating now one released
hand and now the other as he fought for circulation where he
steered in the freezing stern-sheets.

"Just break out that regular song of yours, old Forty-Niner," was
the invariable reply.

And Tarwater would lift his voice in the cackling chant, as he
lifted it at the end, when the boat swung in through driving cake-
ice and moored to the Dawson City bank, and all waterfront Dawson
pricked its ears to hear the triumphant paean:


Like Argus of the ancient times,
We leave this modern Greece,