1915] TO RENSSELAER HARBOR 151 



move all scent from the immediate vicinity. Upon 

 looking back at the end of a half-mile, we saw Tung- we 

 raise his harpoon, plunge it downward, and struggle to 

 check the rawhide line now slipping through his hands. 

 We drove back at full speed to be in at the death, but 

 before reaching it a hundred-pound seal (Phoca fcetida) 

 lay wriggling upon the ice. He had returned to one of 

 his many breathing-holes to be killed by the wary 

 Tung-we. Only a mouthful for our forty-four dogs, but 

 a very acceptable one, seeing that the Eskimos were to 

 travel for sixteen hours, only stopping now and then 

 to untangle the traces. On and on and out we went 

 through broken ice, over thin ice, and along the edge 

 of smoking, black leads. 



At midnight we hitched our dogs and proceeded on 

 foot, listening and scanning the surface of every pool. 

 At two o'clock we went back over extremely thin ice. 

 At three the sun rose, a lurid, distorted ball mounting 

 through the heavy vapor. A rest of two hours cuddled 

 up in a cleft in the ice, hot tea, and then on again wear- 

 ily and drowsily dogging the heels of those tireless 

 hunters. 



At length a large walrus was discovered asleep on 

 the rapidly moving drift ice some 300 yards away. I 

 thought it was positive suicide to approach him over such 

 a treacherous surface. Yet Mene and Teddy-ling- wa, 

 without the slightest bit of hesitation, made their way 

 from cake to cake, now and then carefully gliding across 

 dark, bending ice, up to within twenty yards of the 

 ponderous, sleeping bulk, and here they were blocked 

 by an impassable stretch of water. We saw them now 

 flat on their breasts with sighted rifles. Two sharp re- 

 ports were followed by a tremendous splash as the 2,000 



