Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-06-20
snowdrifts which threaten to blot them out
from human sight and memory.
The Mailman's Daily Peril.

Every morning when he starts out the
mail carrier literally takes his life in 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 His wet clothes imme-
diately freeze. He may get off with loss
of a few toes by freezing; or he is not heard
of until the ice goes out and the river gives
up its dead.
When the mail carrier arises in the morn
ing after sleeping at the rest house" he
inds that every one of his joints is stiifened
by his violent exertions and long exposure
TO the intense cold. Probably trail is to
he seen. There has been a snow storm dur
ing the night, a wind storm which has
drifted the snow. The Yukon is several
miles wide in places. and on these occasions
the surface is SO. broken by hillocks of ice
and snowdrfts that Its winding course can
not be distinguished from the land. The
carrier has to don his snow shoes and break
a new trail for the dogs over the trackless
waste.
Theodore Blum, veteran at the business
started to do this one morning. 1t was on
the Yukon fats just inside the Arctic circle,
where the river is nearly fifteen miles wide
He carried long fir pole with him, his dog
team following him, and when he felt the
ice giving way ne threw down the pole and
rested his weight on il. But even though
his weight thus cunningly distributed
Ii did not always save him from a ducking
He broke through no fewer than six times
In his endeavor to cross the river. and
narrowly 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 specimen of
the pioneer, whose big frame has beens
tcugheHed fighting Indians in Arizona and
In the Dakotas. narrowly escaped death
at the close of last season. 1t was spring
time, and the sun for an hour before and
after noon softened the snow and made
travel difficult, most of his travelling
was done in the night He left his station
ar O'Clock in the morning putting laced
moccasins on the feet of his dogs to pre-
vent the sharp ice crystals from cutting
them. He had made twenty miles and
was going along at clipping pace, his
hands on the bars of his sled, when he
heard the Ice crack under his dogs He
halted 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 or his mOccasins 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 on 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 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 II nothing had happened, and then went
home and had a fever. He was in the hos
pital for two months and had TO have his
toes amputated. Yet he is still In the same
business. and really enjoys its hazards.
George Little, one OF Downings carriers
was travelling through slush ice and got
badly wet He pushed on to reach the
bunk house" but night overlook him
After collecting wood along the river bank
and making a fire. he found that while he
warmed on one side he was chilling on the
other. the thermometer registering 81 de-
grees below zero. So he spent the night
climbing up and down the hill to keep his
blood in circulation.
Men Who Vanish Forever.
These are mild incidents of the everyday
hazards of the trail. told by survivors. In
this adventurous life the old saying that
''the dead tell no tales'' IL as true as 1t was
IN the days of piracy on the high seas. The