BEYOND THE ARCTIC CIRCLE 257 



curl up at your feet, but when you have one on top of 

 your head, a second or maybe a third on your body, and 

 yet another one on your feet, the comfort becomes one of 

 fancy rather than of fact. You are wrapped so tightly in 

 your robes you cannot move your arms or legs in an at- 

 tempt to displace the dogs, and you do not attempt to sit 

 up because that will open your blankets to the cold, and, 

 moreover, so soon as you lay down again those dogs or 

 some others would be on top of you; so you lie there and 

 try to sleep, while your bones ache and you wonder how 

 much inducement would take you on another Barren 

 Ground trip. 



The next day opened the bitterest of all. A northeast 

 wind cut our faces as with a knife. It was utterly im- 

 possible to keep from shivering even in travelling. I can- 

 not sufficiently describe how cold it was, and I do not 

 know, since my thermometer was broken. When we 

 stopped the dogs lifted their feet from the hard -packed 

 snow as though it burned them, and your breath came 

 and went in stinging gasps. 



It was deadly travelling ; nothing to break the fearful 

 blast that drove into our faces with arctic fury. All day 

 long we bent our heads to it, and I fell to comparing my- 

 self with the Wandering Jew, going on and on, and doubt- 

 ing if there really were to come an end to it all, and I 

 should see the sun shine and hear the birds sing. 



I knew we were now about ten days from the " last 

 wood ;" that we could go north not more than a day or 

 two longer, as our sticks would not hold out, and I suf- 

 fered mental torture as I thought of the possibility of not 

 seeing any more musk-oxen. I thought of Munn's unre- 

 warded trip into the Barrens ; of the many parties of hunt- 

 ing Indians that had seen only cows ; and I wondered if 

 all my tramping was to result similarly. I had killed one 

 17 



