76 BY ESKIMO JDOG-SLED 



cold that I should have liked to run, but that 

 was a thing I could not do because of the 

 darkness and the unevenness of the snow. 

 No doubt Johannes was running quite com- 

 fortably, but then, you see, Johannes was an 

 Eskimo, born and bred in Labrador, and he 

 had the fine high-stepping gait that serves the 

 Eskimos so well in rough and soft snow. But 

 I had to sit still, as Johannes had told me : 

 so, in the hope of getting warm, the next time 

 the sled stopped I got the polar bear's skin 

 that was lashed over the load, and wrapped 

 myself in that for warmth. The little man 

 from ahead had his usual word of encourage- 

 ment for me : " Nain in one hour," he said ; 

 " no more stops." " However will you find 

 Nain ? " I asked him. He waited until the 

 next lull in the wind, and pointed upwards. 

 " Do you see that bright star ? " he said ; 

 " that star is right over Nain : the people say 

 that if it were to fall it would fall on the village : 

 we go under that star " and away he went, 

 and I felt the jerk as the sled started after 

 him. Sure enough, in one hour we raced up 

 the slope to the village of Nain, and the dogs 

 roused the people out of their houses with 

 their yelping. 



Sometimes on our journeys Johannes would 

 begin what seemed to me the queerest of capers 



