MY FIRST SLEDGE JOURNEY 



into the house and rushing back for more, and helping 

 to loosen the dogs, and fold up the harness, and clear 

 the snow away from the runners, and store everything 

 away snug and safe for the night. 



Hebron was a veritable land of dogs. Our pro- 

 cession had brought about a hundred and forty to add 

 to the already large supply, and in consequence the 

 place swarmed with them. By daytime it was not 

 so bad ; I |could at all events see my way and avoid 

 treading on the sleeping brutes, though it was not 

 very comfortable to be persistently followed by a 

 dozen or more of the wolfish-looking creatures ; but 

 by night it was awful. The dogs sang and snarled 

 and fought and held meetings of their own, and 

 prowled about in gangs in the moonlight, furtive and 

 terrible. I do not suppose the Eskimos noticed the 

 extra noise, or, for the matter of that, the extra 

 number of doggy slumberers around their doors; 

 but I feel pretty certain that the feeding was a matter 

 of concern to them. Sledge dogs are ravenously 

 hungry when feeding-time comes, and an ordinary 

 team can easily polish off the carcase of a seal at one 

 meal ; so that, though feeding-time comes only three 

 or four times a w^eek, our band of Okak dogs must 

 have made a big hole in the Hebron stock of seals. 

 Some of the people visited Okak later in the winter ; 

 a sort of complimentary return call, I suppose it was, 

 though it smacked very much of getting their own 

 back. 



About noon on the day after my arrival at 

 Hebron the fourteenth sledge appeared. The owner 

 had been hauling firewood all day on the day before 

 we left Okak, and had started the trip with tired 

 dogs. He paid for his folly by having to camp at 



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