Perrault and Francois came to help with clubs, but then they had to run back to save the
food. It was safer for the nine sledge-dogs to run away across the lake. Several of them were
badly hurt, and they spent an unhappy night hiding among the trees.
At first light they returned to the sledge and found Perrault and Francois tired and angry.
Half their food was gone. The Indian dogs had even eaten one of Perrault's shoes. Francois
looked at his dogs unhappily.
'Ah, my friends,' he said softly, 'perhaps those bites will make you ill. What do you think,
Perrault?'
Perrault said nothing. They still had six hundred kilometres to travel, and he hoped very
much that his sledge-dogs had not caught rabies from the Indian dogs.
The harness was torn and damaged and it was two hours before they were moving,
travelling slowly and painfully over the most difficult country that they had been in.
The Thirty Mile River was not frozen. It ran too fast to freeze. They spent six days trying
to find a place to cross, and every step was dangerous for dogs and men. Twelve times they
found ice bridges across the river, and Perrault walked carefully onto them, holding a long
piece of wood. And twelve times he fell through a bridge and was saved by the piece of
wood, which caught on the sides of the hole. But the temperature was 45° below zero, and each time Perrault fell into the water, he had to light a fire to dry and warm himself. Once,
the sledge fell through the ice, with Dave and Buck, and they were covered in ice by the time
Perrault and Francois pulled them out of the river. Again, a fire was needed to save them.
Another time, Spitz and the dogs in front fell through the ice - Buck and Dave and Francois
at the sledge had to pull backwards. That day they travelled only four hundred metres.