190 BY ESKIMO DOG-SLED 



share the money, and so reap a reasonable 

 reward for their adventure : no, they cut the 

 bear in two, and each appropriated an end. 

 They were digusted to find that they had 

 entirely spoiled the market value of the skin 

 by cutting it : no trader wanted half a bear ! 

 But I have that piece of bearskin to-day to 

 remind me of the pluck of those two men, 

 who captured a polar bear with no better 

 weapon than their oars. 



But a bear hunt is quite an unusual thing : 

 it is the cod fishing that makes the months of 

 August and September the busiest in the whole 

 year. 



Day in and day out the boats are on the 

 water, with men and boys sitting in them 

 fishing from morning till night aye, and all 

 night long if fish are plentiful. It is a big 

 test of Eskimo patience, to jerk the bright 

 leaden lure, with its two barbed hooks, up 

 and down within a few feet of the bottom of 

 the sea ; jerk, jerk, jerk, hour after hour, when 

 fish are rather scarce and only the plodder 

 can hope to succeed ; but there come times 

 when the fish are so plentiful that they are 

 on the hook before it is well sunk, and there 

 is a spice of excitement in hauling up as fast 

 as your hands can pull, and dropping the hook 

 again for more and more and more. But in 



