196 HUNTING WITH THE ESKIMOS 



as they believed them to be the sledges of Murphy, 

 the boatswain, and his Eskimos, on a trading ex- 

 pedition to Inglefield Gulf, and Eiseeyou had fox 

 skins to barter. 



Now our trail was up a gradual incline for several 

 miles. Traveling was exceedingly dangerous here, 

 with innumerable cracks and crevasses, most of them 

 so deep that one could not see the bottom of them, 

 and to fall into one would result in certain death. 

 On crawling upon hands and knees to the edge of 

 several of them to peer into the dark depths I was 

 seized with a momentary panic. Many of the cre- 

 vasses were undermined, with an upper shell that 

 would doubtless have broken had we ventured upon 

 it. The danger of this to inexperienced men is an 

 ever present one. Eskimos, however, appear to know 

 at a glance which are the solid and which the under- 

 mined walls, and my companions endeavored to point 

 out to me the difference; but I was never able to 

 judge between them with certainty, for usually they 

 have on the surface no apparent distinguishing mark 

 of which the novice can positively be certain. One 

 of the largest of these crevasses was so wide that we 

 were forced to follow it for upwards of a mile before 

 a safe crossing could be made. 



At length the summit of the glacier was reached, 

 and from this point it branched off into three wide 

 valleys, each reaching northward to the sea as a sep- 

 arate glacier, and each with a steep down grade. 

 Here I was to experience one of the most thrilling in- 

 cidents of my sledge traveling in the Arctic, and an 



