452 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



of high spirits, for they had had a day's rest and were frisky. 

 Our snowhouse was on the bay ice with no landmarks near except 

 the starlit trail. Probably Emiu had gone by the camp several miles 

 before he realized that he was lost. Then he probably became so 

 excited that although the lantern stood on the snowhouse all night 

 and he must have seen it often, he always mistook it for a star. 



We spent much of the evening outdoors, shouting and firing off 

 ammunition, noises that should have been heard for four or five 

 miles in the frosty air and dead stillness. Towards midnight we 

 gave up these attempts to attract his attention, except that we left 

 the lantern aloft. 



Then we went to bed intending to get up about five o'clock in 

 the morning to pick up his trail and follow it. But as ill luck 

 would have it, a storm sprang up during the night. It began snow- 

 ing at perhaps four or five o'clock and by six or seven it was blow- 

 ing a stiff blizzard, with a visibility of only a hundred yards. The 

 previous evening we might have picked up Emiu's trail at the 

 cache and followed it by lantern light, but thought this inadvisable 

 since he would probably be traveling faster than we could follow. 

 Furthermore, we had only one lantern and it seemed wisest to leave 

 that as a beacon at the camp. Now the wind was blowing so hard 

 that it was not possible to follow the trail by lantern light, and 

 with the thick clouds in the sky, the flying snow, and the sun 

 barely on the horizon at noon, we could do nothing till past ten 

 o'clock. Alingnak and I then went out to search. 



Alingnak went directly east from the snowhouse and I directly 

 west, thinking that one of us would thus come across the trail. 

 I zigzagged on my westward way so as to go over each bit of 

 ground three times, but although I kept on several miles till I 

 got to rough sea ice I could find no trail. When I returned to 

 camp Alingnak was back. He had found the trail less than a 

 hundred yards to leeward of the camp. Apparently the dogs 

 must have taken Emiu right through the camp odors without giv- 

 ing any warning. But as Alingnak followed towards the land to 

 the northeast the trail became more and more faint, for through 

 the frequent blizzards of the winter the snow towards the beach 

 was very hard in many spots with almost a glass-like surface. 

 In the low places everything had been filled up by the blizzard 

 that was now blowing. In spite of his best efforts Alingnak could 

 bring back no information except that the trail led towards the land 

 and could not be followed under present conditions of light. He 

 thought that with the distinct shadows of a clear day it probably 



