ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD 37 



open. For some moments he stood motion- 

 less, peering and listening as the bear had 

 done. Suddenly he, too, caught that far-off 

 light crashing of brittle ice. On the instant 

 he turned and crawled hastily back into the 

 hut. 



A moment later he reappeared, carrying 

 two weapons, besides the long knife stuck in 

 his girdle. One of these was an old Hudson 

 Bay Company's musket. The other was a 

 spear of spliced bone, with a steel head 

 securely lashed to it. Powder and ball for 

 the musket were much too precious to be 

 expended, except in some emergency wherein 

 the spear might fail. Without waiting for 

 a repetition of the sounds, he started off 

 at once unerringly in the direction whence 

 they had come. He knew that air-hole ; he 

 could find it in the delusive gloom without 

 the aid of landmark. For some way he 

 went erect and in haste, though as sound- 

 lessly as the bear. Then, throwing himself 

 flat, he followed exactly the bear's tactics, 

 till, at last, peering cautiously over a jagged 

 ice-ridge, he, too, could make out the quarry 

 watchfully coming and going about the 

 brink of the air-hole. 



From this point onward the man's move- 

 ments were so slow as to be almost imper- 



