156 NEAREST THE POLE 



Should I be in time, or would the bull send the gray 

 dog after the bitch, and then put miles of snow and 

 rocks between us and his shaggy harem before they 

 stopped ? 



I went up tne slope as rapidly as possible but there 

 was no hurry in me, my heart was pounding till the 

 crest of the slope above me danced like the Northern 

 Lights, and mouth and nostrils together could not 

 feed air to me half fast enough. The two Eskimos 

 who had the dogs were just ahead of me, Ahngmal- 

 okto beside me, and the other four lying on the ice- 

 foot getting their breath. Mounting the crest I saw 

 the musk-oxen in the usual stellar group of shaggy 

 forms, white horns and gleaming eyes; the body of 

 the bitch lying a short distance away, and the gray 

 dog worrying the bull and dodging his vicious charges. 

 Poor beggar, his weak legs bent beneath him, he 

 stumbled repeatedly in trying to avoid the charges of 

 the bull, and the heaving of his gaunt sides was painful 

 to see, but the blood lust shone in his eyes, the wolf 

 heart of his fathers kept him to his work, and every 

 time the bull swung back to the herd, he returned to 

 the attack. 



"Hold them for a moment or two longer, brave gray, 

 till I get my breath, then both of us will eat our fill." 



I kicked off my snow-shoes and sat down upon them 

 for a moment to pull myself together. In that moment 

 there passed before me all the weary days since we 

 went on scant rations; the grim daily grind; the 

 dismal waiting at the Styx for a chance to regain the 

 world; the heart-breaking work through the shattered 

 ice; the infernal groaning and crashing of the floes; 



