392 FOUR YEARS IN THE WHITE NORTH 



A sleepy "Kanno" answered my knock, and when, in 

 response, I threw open the door and greeted him in 

 perfectly good Swedish, Rasmussen could hardly believe 

 his ears; his eyes were too full of sleep to detect any one 

 but a rather large-sized Eskimo dressed in regular Eskimo 

 costume. When finally he comprehended that his visitor 

 was a white man he jumped out of bed, grasped my hand 

 with his firm, cordial clasp, and made me welcome in the 

 most approved Scandinavian fashion. In a moment he 

 had given orders to have coffee made; in another mo- 

 ment or two it was done, and while we sipped the hot, 

 strong, black coffee such as a Scandinavian loves, our 

 tongues wagged so fast that the Eskimos later said they 

 had never heard the like. 



Both of us were pleased to meet each other, both of 

 us were excited, and both of us had a thousand eager 

 questions to ask. When I told him the object of my 

 journey he at once suggested that I stay with him two 

 or three days, that his dogs might rest a little from their 

 long trip up from Danish Greenland, and he would 

 accompany me when I set out again. Nothing loath to 

 accept such boon companionship, I promptly decided 

 to fall in with his suggestion, all the more willingly since 

 my own Eskimos seemed reluctant to proceed at once. 



The days at the station passed pleasantly and all too 

 quickly. We ate and talked, and talked and ate, and 

 then repeated. I never drank such good coffee or ate 

 such fine bear steak as I got there every few hours. 

 Hendrik Olsen, Rasmussen's all-round handy man, was 

 an expert at making coffee, and proud and pleased at 

 my telling him so, he kept the coffee-pot going most of 

 the time. In the few hours when I was not talking or 

 gating or sleeping I browsed over Rasmussen's well- 



