i6o NEAREST THE POLE 



shame to enter their quiet lives in this murderous way. 

 But their hves had been peaceful and their end was 

 quick, while we had walked through the outskirts of 

 hell, and had been dying by inches, and anyway what 

 would it matter to any of us a hundred years from 

 now — their bones bleaching here on these Arctic 

 slopes, mine — where? 



I had been through this same thing eleven years 

 before, but such experiences do not increase a man's 

 elasticity. I threw myself down on the body of the 

 bull as being less cold and hard than the snow, and 

 heard the shouts of my Eskimos as they rushed at the 

 carcasses; then the clicking of the knives and smacking 

 of lips. Then the cold compelled me to pull myself 

 together. Wet with perspiration next the skin and 

 coated with frost outside, I knew the unpleasant hours 

 before me and eating a few mouthfuls of raw meat, 

 hastened to roll myself in one of the skins in the effort 

 to get warm. It was no use. Wet as I was and weak 

 and tired, the green skin seemed to be no protection 

 against the biting wind, and for the next twelve hours 

 I shivered and ached in my blanket shirt while the 

 Eskimos and dogs ate till they were near bursting. 



Then the tent, the little remaining camp gear, and 

 the remainder of the party were brought up. Perhaps 

 an hour before they arrived the wind came sweeping 

 across the land with still greater force, increasing my 

 discomfort, and I was more than glad to be able to 

 crawl into the tent, where the night (owing to the 

 wind), seemed the coldest of the entire trip. 



This herd of musk-oxen comprised one largo bull, 

 one smaller bull with slightly deformed horns, two 



