FURTHER EXPERIENCES OF DR. HAYES 397 



was satisfied, from what he had seen and heard in the other hut, that foul 

 play was intended. 



"Petersen awoke from his sham sleep, and, having- exchanged words 

 with Godfrey, made some excuse and went out. He found a crowd of men, 

 women, and boys around his rifle. It was fortunate that he had impressed 

 upon them the idea that it was dangerous to touch it. Seeing them assembled 

 about the gun, he called to them to know why they were not afraid to go so 

 near; and they all withdrew. 



"Having secured his rifle, he told them that he intended to go in hunt 

 of bears (Nannook); and drawing from his pocket a handful of balls, he 

 remarked, as he dropped them one by one into his other haand, that each of 

 them was sufficient to kill a bear, or a man, or any other animal. They would 

 have persuaded him to stay; but he had already had enough of their treach- 

 ery, and he resolved to walk to Booth Bay. This, although a dangerous ex- 

 periment, was clearly more safe than to remain. 



"Conscious that their guilty intentions were rightly interpreted, the Es- 

 kimos clustered around him, declaring, with suspicious eagerness, that they 

 'would not hurt him,' that 'nobody meant him any harm.' 



"It was late when, with Godfrey, he started toward our party. The night 

 was clear and calm, but the cold was terribly intense. At our hut the tem- 

 perature was forty-two degrees below zero. The distance to be traveled by 

 them would have been, by the most direct line, forty miles ; but more nearly 

 fifty by the crooked path which they must follow. Even the three days of 

 feasting at the Eskimo settlement had not restored the physical strength of 

 which they had been deprived by their course of life at the hut ; and, reduced 

 as they were in flesh, it seemed to them scarcely probable that they could 

 make the exertion necessary to enable them to rejoin us. 



"The Eskimos sullenly watched them from the shore as they moved off; 

 and when they had gone about two miles, the former hitched their teams, 

 and, leaving the settlement, were soon in full pursuit. The wild, savage cries 

 of the men, and the sharp snarl of the dogs, sounded upon the ears of our 

 poor comrades like a death-knell. In their previous anxieties, they had not 

 looked forward to this new danger. The ice-plain was everywhere smooth; 

 there was not in sight, for their encouragement, a single hummock behind 

 which they might hope to shelter themselves. 



"On came the noisy pack, — half a hundred wolfish dogs. Against such 

 an onset, what could be done by two weak men, armed with a single rifle? 



