The Savannah morning news., 1903-06-21
BY WESTON CONVEY.
Copyright, 1903, by Weston Convey.

Another mail carriers been frozen
to death, boys"
Eyes? That's bad luck! Why, it was
only three weeks ago that Ben Down
ing lost his toes"
This is the kind of talk the traveller
hears in the trappers' huts and rest
houses on the frozen Yukon river and
the Behring coast up to Nome. Along
1900 miles of this rugged, ice-bound re-
gion the United States government has
established the loneliest and most dan
gerous mail route in the world The
mail carriers travel on foot over 1900
miles of this route. and one stretch Of
nearly 800 miles through a desolate, I'M
inhabited country has to be covered by
a single postman. Prospectors hunt
ing for gold in the widest parts of the
Yukon territory get their letters from
home at terrible cost of human life
and suffering.
The Yukon mail carrier must travel
with his dog sledge along river piled
up with blocks of ice like the boulders
on a hillside. He does not have a
level surface on which to skim along
like a skater. His dogs and he must
make their way over masses of Jagged
ice, and struggle through deep snow
drifts which threaten to blot them out
from human sight and memory.
The HIaiIman's Daily Peril.
Every morning, when he starts out,
the mail carrier literally takes his life
4n his hand. Running behind his sled,
he crosses a spot where the ice is thin,
and down he goes. He manages to
get out, perhaps. but the thermometer
is probably down in the sixties below
Jie ~ IO&N Il s..kn lr
freeze. He may get off with a loss of
a few toes by freezing; or he is not
heard of until the ice goes out and the
river gives up it's dead.
When the mail carrier arises in the
morning, after sleeping at the "rest
house." he finds that every one of his
joints is stiffened by his violent exer-
lions and long exposure to the intense
cold. Probably no trail is to be seen.
There has been a snow storm during
the night, or a wind storm which has
drifted the snow. The Yukon is sew
eral miles wide in places, and on these
occasions the surface is so broken by
hillocks of ice and snowdrifts that it's
winding course cannot be distinguished
from the land. The carrier has to don
his snowshoes and break a new trail
for the dogs over the trackless waste.
Theodore Blum, a veteran at the bus
mess, started to do this one morning.
1t was on the Yukon flats, just inside
the Arctic circle. where the river is
nearly fifteen miles wide. He carried
a long fir pole with him, his dog team
following him. and when he felt the
ice giving way he threw down the
pole and rested his weight on it. But
even though his weight was thus cum
ningly distributed, it did not always
save him from ducking. He broke
through no fewer than six times in his
endeaVor to cross the river and mar
rowly escaped being frozen before he
could reach one of the shelters. -....
A Struggle with Death.
Ben Downing, the most famous OF
the mail carriers, a magnificent speci-
men of the pioneer whose big frame
has been tougheaed fighting Indians
in Arizona and in the Dakotas, mar
rowly escaped death at. the close of
last season. 1t was springtime, and
the sun for an hour before and after
noon. softened the snow and made
travel difficult so most of his travel
ing was done in the night He left
his station at 1 O'Clock in the morn
ing, putting laced moccasins on the
feet of his dogs to prevent the sharp
ice crystals from cutting them. He
had made twenty miles and was go
ing along at a clipping pace, his hands
on the oars OF LnS SleQ, when ne HedTO
the ice crack under his dogs. He halt
ed them with a word and planted his
feet rigidly to break the momentum
of the sled. This sudden throwing OF
his weight in one place broke the ice,
and down he. went,
The sagacity which comes to the
dogs from daily going through such
experiences enabled them to drag
him on to the solid ice, and away
they went again. faster than before
because Ben had his feet wet and
knew they were freezing. A few miles
more and he knew they had already
frozen. Then they began to bleed
and for ten miles the blood spurted
out of the lace holes of his mocas-
sins with every step, and left red
trail on the frozen snow.
At length he reached one of his
lonely stations. The first thing he did
was to strip off his wet clothes; then
he wrapped blanket around his
naked body and in a temperature OF
81 degrees below zero hunted up wood
and made a fire. The following night
he travelled nearly fifty miles until
he reached Dawson City. He handed
over his mail, went limping about
his business as if nothing had hap
pened, and then went home and had
fever. He was in the hospital tor
two months, and had to have has toes
amputated Yet he is still in the same
business, and really enjoys its hazards
George Little, one of Downing