In Winter Quarters 



easy a butchery as shooting cows in a barn- 

 yard from the roof of the barn. It was pro- 

 longed, bloody agony, as clumsily and heart- 

 lessly inflicted as it could well be, except in 

 the case of the first, which never knew what 

 hurt him. 



"The Eskimos hunt and kill them for food, 

 going out to meet them on the ice with spears 

 and dogs. This is merely one savage living 

 on another. But how civilized people, seeking 

 for heavens and angels and millenniums, and 

 the reign of universal peace and love, can 

 enjoy this red, brutal amusement, is not so 

 easily accounted for. Such soft, fuzzy, senti- 

 mental aspirations, and the frame of mind 

 that can reap giggling, jolly pleasure from the 

 blood and agony and death of these fine 

 animals, with their humanlike groans, are too 

 devilish for anything but hell. Of all the 

 animals man is at once the worst and the best. 



"Two of the bears were hoisted on board, 

 the other was neglected until it could not be 

 found. Then came the vulgar business of 

 skinning and throwing the mangled carcasses 

 back into the clean blue water among the ice. 

 The skins were stretched on frames to be dried 

 and taken home to show angelic sweethearts 

 the evidence of pluck and daring." 



[126] 



