414 HUNTING WITH THE ESKIMOS 



flippers fell to my lot as trophies, while the Eskimos 

 cached the meat among the rocks. 



We returned to camp after the seal hunt and I re- 

 tired at once. When I arose a few hours later every- 

 thing was blanketed with snow, and snow was still 

 falling thick and fast. Pierwater called a little later 

 to tell me he had seen a great many fish at the mouth of 

 a mountain stream not far from Etah. Donning 

 warm clothes and taking my rod, I walked over to the 

 place indicated to try my luck. In succession I cast 

 every fly and every spoon that I had, but at the end of 

 an hour and a half of hard endeavor, without being 

 rewarded with a single rise, gave it up and returned to 

 camp. 



All day it snowed, and all the next day, without 

 abatement. This second day of the storm by my 

 reckoning was August fourteenth. An even cover- 

 ing of eight inches of snow lay on the ground, and the 

 air was raw and cold, with the temperature at twenty- 

 one degrees, when I turned into my sleeping-bag that 

 night. 



Our summer had been very short, with only a few 

 really warm days. Already the sun was fast drop- 

 ping toward the horizon, and the long winter with its 

 sunless, depressing night was stealing upon us. 



For several days now I had been looking regularly 

 for the ship that was to have come to carry me out 

 of exile. My longing for it to appear was fast grow- 

 ing into impatience, as day after day ended in dis- 

 appointment. I permitted my imagination to draw 

 for me pictures of the friends at home, the places 



