In no time." Stewart River was wide open, and they ascended it a quarter of a mile before they shot its mouth and continued up the Yukon.

But when they were well abreast of the man on the opposite bank a new obstacle faced them.

A mile above, a wreck of an island clung desperately to the river bed.

Its tail dwindled to a sand-spit which bisected the river as far down as the impassable bluffs.

Further, a few hundred thousand tons of ice had grounded upon the spit and upreared a glittering ridge.
"We'll have to portage," Corliss said, as Frona turned the canoe from the bank.
La Bijou darted across the narrower channel to the sand-spit and slipped up a little ice ravine, where the walls were less precipitous.
They landed on an out-jutting cake, which, without support, overhung the water for sheer thirty feet.