A Musk -Ox Hunt. 323 



igloo, under the fostering protection of the old squaw, and being 

 saved the necessity of combating for his daily bread, thus pre- 

 served his ears. 



The chase finished, the half- famished dogs received all they could 

 eat, — their first full feast in over three weeks, — and after loading 

 the two sledges with the remaining meat and a few of the finer 

 robes as mementos and trophies, we returned to our morning's 

 camp, a distance of five or six miles, which we traveled slowly 

 enough, our over-fed dogs hardly noticing the most vigorous appli- 

 cations of the well-applied whip. 



The Eskimos with whom I was brought in contact never hunt the 

 musk-oxen without a plentiful supply of well-trained dogs, for with 

 their help the hunters are almost certain of securing the whole herd, 

 unless the animals are apprised of the approach, as they were in our 

 encounter with them. When the flying herd has been brought to 

 bay in their circle of defense by the dogs, the Eskimo hunters 

 approach within five or six feet and make sure of every shot that 

 is fired, as a wounded animal is somewhat dangerous and extremely 

 liable to stampede the herd. A band of these brutes, when once 

 stampeded, are much harder to bring to bay the second time ; but it 

 may be well to mention that, if the hunt is properly managed, such 

 stampedes are extremely rare. When the circle of cattle is first 

 approached, the hunters take care to dispatch first the active and 

 aggressive bulls, conformably to a general hunting maxim followed 

 in all parts of the world. As their members fall, one at a time, the 

 musk-oxen persist in their singular mode of defense, presenting their 

 ugly-looking horns toward as many points of the compass as their 

 remaining numbers will allow. When but two only are left, these, 

 with rumps together, will continue the unequal battle, and even the 

 last "forlorn hope" will back up against the largest pile of his dead 

 comrades, or against a large rock or snow-bank, and defy his 

 pursuers, dogs and hunters, until his death. While the calves 

 are too young and feeble to take their places in ranks, which, in 

 general, is about the first eight or nine months of their existence, 

 they occupy the interior space formed by the defensive circle ; 

 but when their elders have perished in their defense, with an 

 instinct born of the species they will form in the same order and 

 show fight. 



