124 HUNTING WITH THE ESKIMOS 



bag, that sleep was impossible. For hours I lay and 

 longed for the time to come when we should start. 

 To add to the tedium I could not tell when that 

 would be, for I had no watch with me. The Eskimos 

 time themselves entirely by the stars, in the winter 

 night, and I had not yet learned to convert the 

 heavens into a timepiece. 



At length there was a stir among my sleeping com- 

 panions, and with small delay we were up, and plod- 

 ding northward in the face of a cutting wind. 

 Weary still, after my uncomfortable and sleepless 

 night, I ached in every joint, and it seemed as though 

 my feet and hands, numb with cold, would surely 

 freeze before exercise could renew circulation of 

 stagnate blood. 



The dogs had not been fed in three days, and 

 though the poor creatures, weak from starvation, 

 strove to the best of their ability, their progress was 

 slow, and only through excessive beating at the hands 

 of their merciless masters were they kept moving at 

 all. We came again at this time upon a fresh bear 

 track, but the animals were too far exhausted to 

 follow it. 



At length I rebelled. There was no use trying to 

 force the dogs to do something they were physically 

 incapable of doing and, as diplomatically as possi- 

 ble, I made it plain to the Eskimos that I desired to 

 turn back to Annootok and abandon the hunt. They 

 talked it over for a long while among themselves, 

 before they very reluctantly acceded to my wishes. 



The wind was rising rapidly and, ere the retreat 



