96 BY ESKIMO DOG-SLED 



sternation at our plight, and had very little 

 to say ; at times like that the Eskimo is a 

 man of action, and it seemed quite natural 

 that with a short grunt of explanation little 

 Johannes pulled an axe from among the load 

 firmly lashed to the upturned sled and trotted 

 off on an errand of his own. 



Meanwhile, Julius was looking for his gun, 

 which he had tucked along the floor of my 

 travelling box, and I was amazed to see him 

 load it and start firing at the broken runner. 

 He was using great bullets that he had most 

 likely intended for shooting deer, and the effect 

 of each shot was to bore a good-sized hole in 

 the wood. He placed eight of them at intervals 

 along the runner, some near the top and some 

 near the bottom, and then coolly polished out 

 his gun with a wad of tow and made it fast 

 on the sled again. By this time Johannes was 

 in sight on the river-bank, carrying a long, 

 thin tree over his shoulder ; and Julius set 

 to work to find a spare length of seal-hide trace 

 somewhere among his belongings. The two 

 Eskimos chopped the tree to the proper 

 length, and flattened it a little on one side ; 

 then they threaded the line through the shot 

 holes and bound the tree to the broken 

 runner. 



" Taimak " (that will do), they said, and 



