230 FOUR YEARS IN THE WHITE NORTH [Mar. 



Within a minute a round iiead with extremely large 

 eyes appears above the water. A whispered "Ta-koo!" 

 A hurried sit down by Arklio, a careful sighting along the 

 rifle-barrel, held securely with elbows on the knees, a 

 sharp report. The head has disappeared beneath a 

 whirl of crimson-stained water. A few inches of a 

 rounded back drifts to the east with the ebb tide. The 

 Eskimo grasps his harpoon and line and runs to the 

 lower edge of the pool; then, and as the body is about 

 to disappear beneath the ice, he buries the ivory iron- 

 tipped point deep into the flesh. The game is on; we 

 have scored one. Twelve seals in almost as many 

 minutes ! The boys harpooned the dead from a distance 

 of twenty-five and thirty feet. Here amid the silence 

 of the great white hills these fur-clad figures, at ten be- 

 low zero, laughed and joked and matched their skill as 

 so many school-boys in the warm South. How they 

 roared with laughter and gibed each other unmercifully 

 when a miss was made! 



Seal meat was cached under the snow against our re- 

 turn in May. Possibly we would be in extreme need of 

 it, and neck to neck with time, in our race with the 

 break-up of the ice of Smith Sound. Fifteen miles a day 

 were necessary, come what would — strong winds, drift- 

 ing snows, thin ice, little food, sickness, accidents, ex- 

 treme temperatures. Thus far we had covered nineteen, 

 booking up extra miles for days of enforced idleness in 

 snow houses far to the west. 



On the 27th, a dog showed signs of "piblock-to," a 

 strange disease rightfully dreaded by every explorer; 

 it is a form of rabies, and fatal. Once it has fairly in- 

 vaded a team, extermination is the certain result. It 

 has thwarted many well-laid plans, has sent many a 



