286 FOUR YEARS IN THE WHITE NORTH [Mar. 



a-shah-o were quartering the ice of Smith Sound in 

 search of me and my trail. There was no thought of 

 desertion. One walked far to the north; another, south; 

 and the third remained with the sledges on the trail, 

 firing his rifle every few minutes to guide his companions 

 back, and with the hope that I might hear it. 



Ak-pood-a-shah-o reported my tracks far to the 

 south, going west. They at once drove on, and arrived 

 at our camp about seven in the evening. 



On the morning of the 28th we awoke to the rustling 

 of drift over and around our snow house A smother of 

 snow! Dogs, sledges, houses, buried in drift! The 

 thermometer was only five below zero and the wind 

 southeast. We knew that such a storm might continue 

 for days. E-took-a-shoo built a long snow entrance, 

 terminating in a kind of storm-porch, thus keeping the 

 drift away from the door. 



I visited the snow houses of the musk-ox party, taking 

 with me as a donation a six-pound can of pemmican, 

 for which I received walrus and bear meat in return. 



Checkers, cards, stories, and tobacco, with which I 

 always provided the Eskimos, shortened many of those 

 long hours of the 28th, 29th, and 30th. Signs of clear- 

 ing weather at noon quickened our packing and our de- 

 parture west, very happy to leave the middle of Smith 

 Sound for the shelter of the big hills of Ellesmere Land. 



Open water extending north of Cape Sabine compelled 

 a detour well up into Buchanan Bay and a passage south 

 by way of Rice Strait, in the middle of which we camped. 

 Above our igloo on the summit of a knoll could be seen 

 the cairn of Sverdrup of the Fram and the wooden cross 

 in memory of his doctor, Svendson, who was buried 

 here through a hole in the ice. Stretched along the 



