346 FOUR YEARS IN THE WHITE NORTH 



The next morning we had not driven a mile before 

 E-took-a-shoo, who was in the lead, swung up over 

 the bank along the ice-foot on w^hich we were traveling, 

 and our dogs followed. There before us, not fifty yards 

 away, was a big herd of musk-oxen, all bunched up to 

 give fight. Because I had promised my companions 

 that as soon as we found a goodly flock of the big ani- 

 mals in a place comfortable for an extended camp we 

 should kill enough to keep us supplied with food for a 

 week or ten days, while we rested and fattened our dogs 

 preparatory to entering upon the exploration of the new 

 lands about which we knew nothing, I told them that 

 we should kill the entire herd. 



To do so seemed wanton slaughter, for when the kill 

 was over we had brought down twenty -one musk-oxen — 

 a few only yearlings; most, two- or three-year-olds. 

 But we had three teams of hungry dogs, and a team of 

 eight or ten dogs easily devours a musk-oxen at a meal, 

 even though it be almost as big as a two-year-old steer. 

 At the end of seven days the meat was gone, except for 

 a little that we carried on our sledges. 



We stayed until April 26th at this camp. Camp 

 E-took-a-shoo, well fed and comfortable. E-took-a- 

 shoo built at this camp a substantial, roomy snow house, 

 the last we needed on that trip, and we lined it through- 

 out with the many skins of the musk-ox we killed. 

 Every day we went tramping about the great rolling 

 plain that comprises the northern end of the peninsula. 

 I collected dry plants and fossils assiduously. Of the 

 latter I found many, both Paleozoic and Mesozoic. 

 The peninsula teems with life. Hundreds of hares, 

 scores of ptarmigan, and herds of musk-oxen feed on the 

 slopes of the hills and the valley plains. The country' 



