94 FOUR YEARS IN THE WHITE NORTH [May 



cleaned the bones, wagging their tails and plainly saying: 

 "Thank God, we're on land again! No more pemmican 

 for us!" 



An hour later, as we helped ourselves to steaming 

 hearts, tongues, livers, and tenderloin, we agreed with 

 all they said. The change from pemmican was pleas- 

 ant. Three of the brains were put aside to be frozen 

 for breakfast. 



Through the haze of the 6th, white-capped Hvit- 

 berget could be faintly distinguished at least thirty- 

 five miles distant. We headed toward this straight 

 over the sea ice, E-took-a-shoo leading all day long, and 

 setting a good pace with the help of a large sail rigged 

 to the back of his sledge. To our disappointment, the 

 snow house here was demolished, compelling us to re- 

 build. It was one of the pleasures of our return to look 

 forward to the ready-built house at the end of the 

 trail. 



Influenced by his success of the day before in con- 

 verting his sledge into a ship, E-took-a-shoo bravely 

 set his square sail to take advantage of a strong fair 

 wind. Entering a long lane of glassy ice, the sledge 

 fairly ran amuck, with E-took-a-shoo holding on to it 

 like a leach and blowing like a porpoise. The sledge 

 plowed through the dogs, scattered them to right and 

 left, jibed over, whirled crazily, and then capsized. 

 The dogs eyed it suspiciously and wondered if this rapidly 

 moving animal could be good to eat! 



Our igloo at Schei Island, with its glistening, blue- 

 tinted walls, and the warm bed and floor deep with furs, 

 recalled memories of the five happy days spent there. 

 Here we recovered our caribou-skin sleeping-bags left 

 at this point to economize on weight. For thirty-three 



