224 HUNTING WITH THE ESKIMOS 



some success. It seemed to me that the fresh hare 

 meat was superior in flavor to that of frozen deer's 

 meat, and it was a most welcome addition to the menu. 



One by one the families left us. Klayo came in 

 one morning before I was up to give me a fine walrus 

 tusk, and four sealskin bags she had made for my 

 proposed musk-ox hunt in Ellesmere Land one for 

 tea, one for coffee, one for sugar and one for cart- 

 ridges. She and Oxpuddyshou were leaving at once 

 for Etah, thence to go farther south, and when he 

 returned to join me on the musk-ox hunt it was un- 

 certain whether she would be with him or whether 

 I should ever see her again. Therefore she brought 

 me these things as parting gifts in appreciation of my 

 stay among her people. 



The glorious light was growing rapidly. Pres- 

 ently a day came when at noontime the southeastern 

 sky was illumined with marvelous red and orange 

 colorings like the afterglow of a sunset. Our un- 

 accustomed eyes blinked in the unusually strong 

 light reflected by the glistening white blanket that 

 enveloped the frost-crystalled snow and ice. We 

 had grown very thin and peaked. Our complexion 

 was a sickly shade of yellowish green. Even the 

 Eskimos, whom I had believed unsusceptible to this 

 change, had assumed it, and every one of us looked 

 sick and weakly. 



My time now was chiefly occupied in preparations 

 for the musk-ox hunt. One of my oil stoves had been 

 knocked badly out of shape, and had to be repaired, 

 and new boxes made for their better protection in 



