78 FOUR YEARS IN THE WHITE NORTH [April 



stock, saying, ''Nah-muck-tor ("All right!"). As I 

 watched his little short legs running behind the komatik, 

 I was astonished at the flexibility of salt-water ice. It 

 yielded like a strip of rubber, one wave seeming to pre- 

 cede and another to follow him. I had visions of E-took- 

 a-shoo camping alone if he had weakened it in any way 

 by passing over it. As Green crossed I said to myself, 

 " He will never get there " ; but he did. Two of my dogs 

 broke through; a shake of their furry coats, a wag of 

 their tails, and they were ready to go on. 



As a reward for crossing this lead, a perfect picture 

 presented itself — a long, level stretch of compact snow. 

 We easily covered twelve miles in four hours, when we 

 were stopped by another lead. Sending Pee-a-wah-to 

 west and E-took-a-shoo east to reconnoiter. Green and 

 I impatiently awaited their return. Knowing that the 

 former was a little discouraged and feeling that I could 

 not trust him for an accurate report, I soon followed. 

 About one mile west from the sledges the lead ended 

 in two branches. Long before I reached this point I 

 could hear the crunching of the ice. The opposite sides 

 of the first branch were now in contact, offering a bridge 

 scarcely wide enough for one sledge to cross; here the 

 edges were slowly rising and crumpling with a peculiar 

 humming sound. Jumping over this and hurrying 

 across an old floe some fifty yards wide, I made a hasty 

 examination of the second branch. Spanning this was 

 a chaotic mass of rubble jammed so tightly together 

 that it ought to bear our weight. There was no time 

 to be lost; it might open any minute. Running back 

 down the lead I yelled to the boys to come on. The 

 first lead was easily taken by means of the narrow 

 bridge, but the second presented the hardest ten min- 



