SOFT SNOW 



struggled and tugged, and though the men heaved 

 the sledge from side to side to set the runners free 

 from the clinging snow ; they simply wallowed, and 

 I wondered what was going to be the outcome. The 

 men were equal to the emergency ; no doubt it was 

 an everyday kind of occurrence to them ; they went on 

 snowshoes for twenty or thirty yards, and tramped 

 to and fro to harden a track, and then came back and 

 urged the dogs to try again, and so the sledge crawled 

 on. I slipped on my snowshoes and tried to go with 

 them, but after a mile or two I was absolutely 

 beaten ; my legs refused to be lifted, and once I fell 

 and had to be ignominiously rescued from a sea of 

 powdery snow by the ever-watchful Julius. It 

 seemed a shame to sit upon the sledge while the dogs 

 were toiling so hard, but there was nothing else for 

 it ; so I sat still and tried not to think about the poor 

 dogs, though really, when I saw the sledge sinking 

 above the cross-pieces, with its nose shoving a great 

 snowball in front of it, I had not the heart to sit 

 down. I jumped off, and immediately sank and 

 made the dogs' work all the harder by clinging to 

 the side of the travelling box and nearly upsetting 

 the whole thing. In the softest places, when the big 

 snowball grew between the runners in front, the men 

 came back and kicked it away, and lifted the nose 

 of the sledge up for a fresh plunge, and yelled " Hu-it, 

 hu-it, hu-it " until the dogs went off with a scamper 

 a burst of energy that only lasted for ten yards, when 

 the nose was under the snow again and needed all the 

 efforts of both men and dogs to make it plough for- 

 ward ever so slowly. It is not more than ten miles 

 across Nappartok Bay, but we took ten and a half 

 hours to cross it ; and after that crossing 1 no longer 



146 



