152 CONQUERING THE ARCTIC ICE 



The Eskimo's idea of hospitality, however, obliged Sacha- 

 wachick to feed these people as long as he had anything to live 

 on himself, and the old man had to go out in all kinds of 

 weather to get meat for the many people depending upon him, 

 while the family itself thought that we also ought to keep open 

 house for them on board everybody did so in this country, so 

 why should not we be willing to do the same ? Almost every 

 day of the week Cropcana came down to us, took a seat where 

 we could not help seeing her, and coughed and looked ill and 

 begged for her children. Sometimes she also brought down 

 some small article absolutely useless to us and wanted to sell 

 it for crackers or something else for her children, and if she did 

 not get what she asked for she pretended to be ill and wanted 

 to have some medicine, knowing that we never refused that. 

 Cropcana had got the nickname of " Crackhead," as she told 

 us in the beginning of the winter that her skull was broken. 

 She had a headache, a devil was sitting in there, and Dr. Howe 

 gave her some medicine which would kill the pain. He made 

 her eat some blue capsuloids which would make her urine blue, 

 and said that when this happened the devil would be killed and 

 she herself cured. There was great excitement in the village to 

 see what would happen, and when the looked for event took 

 place Cropcana declared that she could plainly feel that her 

 head was healed and the devil gone, while the whole village 

 thought that Dr. Howe must be nothing less than a sorcerer. 

 A rumour told that the famous Cropcana headache almost 

 brought the family to the brink of starvation, as she had made 

 Kanara believe that if he fired a gun the devil in her head 

 would hear it and trouble her more than ever. The result was 

 that Kanara hardly did any work for a whole winter, and 

 another family had to support him, his wife, and their offspring. 



Drastic remedies were necessary in that country, and Dr. 

 Howe was an expert in the art of inventing cures which by 

 some outward sign would show the people that an expected 

 result had been obtained. 



The first days of February were very bad, and for four days 

 it was blowing from the west. The result was that the young 

 ice, which had been formed after the violent gale in January 

 had sent the ice far out to sea, was again crushed and the 

 floe right off Flaxman Island looked very ugly. The wind, 



