THE REINDEER HUNT 



even to be shifted by a bullet, and the effect of the 

 tremendous force was to raise a big blister on the 

 barrel ! Happily the steel was too tough to explode, 

 or that adventurous young Eskimo would have been 

 wiped out. He came running to the missionary, 

 brandishing his blistered gun. " No good," he said, 

 " can't shoot with this gun any more please cut him 

 short." So the missionary filed the barrel off behind 

 the blister, and thus the gun became a sort of exag- 

 gerated pistol; and the proud and smiling owner 

 was in time for the reindeer hunt, and did well. 



So much for gun accidents ; but I must confess 

 that, rare as mishaps are, I used to watch the annual 

 gun-tinkering with a good deal of anxiety for the 

 safety of my apparently venturesome Eskimo 

 neighbours. 



All this is a prelude to the reindeer hunt ; and at 

 last the great day comes, and with shoutings and 

 cracking of whips the sledges are away in the dark 

 of the morning, and the hunters have started. I 

 have watched them off in the gathering light, stern- 

 faced and eager, each ] man to his own sledge, and 

 mostly alone. A boy of thirteen is handy with a 

 gun, and useful to take care of the dogs ; but smaller 

 folk must stay at home, beseech they never so prettily. 

 The reindeer hunt is no time for useless weight upon 

 the sledge : I knew a man who took his wife with 

 him, but the lady had to walk the seventy or eighty 

 miles home, trailing laboriously [beside the sledge, 

 because there was such a load of meat and skins 

 that the dogs could pull no more ; and up the hills 

 she tasted the realities of the reputed third-class 

 passage of the old English coaching days " Get off 

 and shove." 



235 



