148 HUNTING WITH THE ESKIMOS 



been so long without food it would have been alto- 

 gether too cruel to have pushed them farther with no 

 certainty of killing game to feed them. 



Rime filled the air, and frost fell in minute flakes 

 so thickly that in a very few minutes after brushing 

 it off one would be completely covered again. For 

 an hour the northern lights flashed, then died out. 

 Finally the haze obscured the moon completely. 

 From the moment the retreat began we had a rising 

 wind directly in our face, bitter and cutting. 



We rode where the going was good, and I was so 

 tired and sleepy that I found myself continually 

 dozing off, to be awakened suddenly by losing my 

 balance on the komatik, but always in time to regain 

 my hold. One halt was made to pick up four traps 

 set by the Eskimos on the way north, and we found 

 two large blue foxes and a white one in them. 



The time seemed interminably long, but at last we 

 reached Annootok, and, as on the former trip to Cape 

 Russell, just in time, for almost immediately another 

 of those awful blizzards, so frequent in the long 

 night, broke upon us. It seemed at times as though 

 the shack could not possibly stand against its force. 



It was so thick and cold the next day that none of 

 the Eskimos ventured out of his igloo, and I had no 

 callers. Once I made an effort to reach Kulutin- 

 guah's igloo, but before I had gone many paces my 

 face was frozen. Such darkness I never experienced 

 before. One could not see a foot ahead. The bliz- 

 zard, too, was so terrible, driving the snow with such 

 force that it fell like shot striking the face, and made 



