162 BY ESKIMO DOG-SLED 



outspread claws : it was a one-legged sort of 

 a track, and it puzzled me. 



I called Jerry, our great seal hunter, who 

 was driving my sled, and asked him about 

 this curious line of footprints. Jerry looked 

 at the tracks, and he looked at the snow 

 bank ; and then he looked at me. " Those 

 footprints," he said, and his face was ever so 

 grave, " those footprints are the footprints of 

 a little piece of snow rolling down the snow 

 bank." Then we drove on. 



The Eskimos themselves are always on the 

 tracks of one sort of animal or another ; 

 hunting is their very life, and as the days of 

 winter went by, and the excitement of sealing 

 at the sina and trapping in the woods began 

 to wane, I was not surprised that there was 

 something else to occupy their thoughts. 

 " Tuktu " began to be the burden of their 

 talk from morning till night. 



The men stood chattering in groups ; the 

 women indoors were sewing and mending 

 from dawn to sunset and sometimes far into 

 the night ; " Tuktu, tuktu, tuktu," was in 

 everybody's mouth the reindeer hunt was 

 coming. Presently the word went round that 

 the scouts were out, and everybody lived in 

 a fever of excitement. This was early in 

 March ; and all day long the people were 



