124 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV 



motive of desire] is served continually by the intelligence 

 so long as it remains unbroken, uninfluenced by some 

 other force. 



We say, then, that we ' know the direction,' and this 

 consciousness is such that if its object is retained and 

 pursued day after day the mind becomes so trained in a 

 certain line of concentration that after a check it can take 

 up the thread again quite independently of the eye. 



I remember, again, how one day when it was very hot 

 I threw a jacket over the bough of a tree where my Cree 

 Indian said we should pick it up on our return. We 

 hunted all that day and the next, lay out that night, and 

 the following evening as we were returning home I 

 suddenly remembered my jacket. A jacket hanging on 

 a bough in the middle of a pathless forest is no very 

 easy thing to find. But the Cree, shutting his eyes, 

 remained so for a minute or two, and then, turning half 

 round, walked straight away. I followed, and at the end 

 of an hour or so we had come straight up to the jacket. 



This has been a long digression. But now to the 

 point. 



I remembered the Cree. I shut my eyes and thought. 

 After a moment I could, as it were, see the choom, and 

 so clearly that I knew I could walk up to it. 



I opened my eyes. All was fog— dense fog. But 

 pointing, I said to my companion, ' There is the choom 

 — straight over there,' which was almost in the opposite 

 direction from where we had supposed it to be. 



