. ARCTIC FRIENDS AND ENEMIES 



and the grease, I heated them over the fire until they ran 

 together, forming a pitch with which I painted the canvas, 

 using a stick with a rag wound around one end for a brush. 

 I dressed out my oars from green spruce, and the boat 

 was finished. 



Getting under the boat I knocked out the props with 

 an ax, and then I began an effort to move it down over 

 the river bank. It evidently weighed about eight hundred 

 pounds, and mv first two. or three attempts to move it 

 failed. But improving my position, I at last felt it go 

 forward about an inch, and then again, and little by little 

 I worked it forward, endwise, down the bank and upon a 

 sand beach at the edge of the stream. Once on the smooth 

 level sand it came down all around me, of course, and I 

 began to realize that it might be difficult to get from under 

 it. I could raise one side, but when I attempted to get 

 out, my purchase was taken from me, and down came the 

 boat across me, and I could get no farther. I only gained 

 my freedom by scratching a hole in the sand underneath 

 the gunwale, sufficiently large to admit of my crawling 

 out, just as a dog might have done. 



Once on the outside, I rolled the boat over in such a 

 manner that it struck the water right side up, a rather 

 undignified launching for such a stately craft. But it sat 

 on the water nicely and was now ready for its valuable 

 cargo. 



In spite of hard work, my feeling of loneliness while 

 building my boat was beyond the conception of any one 

 who has never been cut off from the world. Zilla was 

 some company, and after each day's work was done, or 

 dusk would put a stop to it, he and I would go for a run 

 on the beach, and he enjoyed this quite as much as myself. 

 But most of the time he, too, seemed very lonely. Much 

 of the time I could eat but little of the food I prepared, and 

 when the heavy ice broke on the great river and began to 

 move, its constant grinding and pounding and booming 

 created such an awful noise for five days that I could not 

 sleep. 



As the last of the ice was going, I had everything ready 

 and followed. I prepared a life raft with some some rubber 

 bags, so that in case my boat struck a snag and sank, I 



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