62 FOUR YEARS IN THE WHITE NORTH [Mar. 



distance, hoping to secure game enough for the other 

 half. As I viewed the large pile of red meat around our 

 igloos, I felt that we had certainly made a good start. 



Now that our loads were safely across Ellesmere Land, 

 my supporting party w^as no longer needed; I could dis- 

 pense w^ith at least two of the sledges. In the morning 

 Ekblaw and Kai-o-ta started back for Etah. With them 

 went Green, Noo-ka-ping-w^a, and Arklio, with orders to 

 load up at the big cache in Hayes Sound with oil and 

 pemmican and rejoin me at Cape Thomas Hubbard. In 

 the mean time I was to go on slowly, laying in caches of 

 meat on the trail for use during our return trip. 



As we swung across to the north side of Bay Fiord 

 on the 25th, two large white wolves loped along behind 

 us just out of range, finally disappearing in the rough 

 ice in the middle of the Sound. At the end of this 

 march I feared that the Eskimos were altogether too 

 optimistic w^hen they declared that we could live on the 

 country. Two days now, and not a sign of a musk-ox. 

 Reluctantly I told the boys to feed a pound of pemmi- 

 can to each dog. Although they had not been fed for 

 two days, they had quietly lain down and gone to sleep, 

 as was their custom when hitched to the ice-foot; not 

 a w^hine or a bark or a look in our direction indicated 

 that they were hungry. WTiat keeps an Eskimo dog 

 alive and going for days and days and days I do not 

 know. I have been informed by the Eskimos that they 

 have known dogs to travel eight and ten days without 

 food. Such a period of fasting is a common occurrence 

 every fall w^hen on the annual caribou-hunt south of the 

 Humboldt Glacier and when hunting bears south of 

 Cape Isabella. 



The deep snow^s on the northern side of Bay Fiord, 



