154 NEAREST THE POLE 



everyone crawling along and Clark and Pooblah out 

 of sight in the rear. The snow was about three feet 

 deep; impracticable for a party without snowshoes, 

 but affording good snowshoeing for a party with snow- 

 shoes and in good condition. For us it was heavy 

 work. We camped on the ice at the intersection of 

 a line between Victoria Inlet and Beaumont Island, and 

 our course. Just before stopping I heard another 

 shot from Panikpah. We had killed a dog for supper 

 and were cutting it up when Ootah, who was carefully 

 examining the land with the glass, yelled — "Ooming- 

 muksuef' (Musk-oxen.) The cry electrified us all. 

 I jumped out of the tent and found him looking at 

 the Nares Land shore, seized the glass, and made out 

 seven black spots on top of the shore bluff apparently 

 right over the ice-foot. 



I grabbed my mittens, tied on my snowshoes, told one 

 man to get my carbine and cartridges, and the others 

 to hitch the dogs to the empty sledge, and started 

 off as I was, in my blanket shirt, having thrown off 

 my kooletah (deerskin coat) while working over the 

 cooker in the tent making tea. 



I was as foolish as the others, and only when some 

 distance from the tent and I realised that I was running, 

 did I come to my senses. 



It was too late to go back for my kooletah and the 

 oil-stove cooker, but I did call a halt on the pace 

 which in our excitement we were making. 



The musk-oxen were not less than six miles away 

 and we, weak and footsore, on top of a day's trying 

 march, were running in our eagerness. Yet every 

 once in a while I found myself unconsciously hurrying. 



