THE REINDEER HUNT 



tied round with scarves to keep the wind out, and 

 they had their heads down as they faced the bleak 

 gusts. Before ten o'clock a hurricane was raging, 

 and I feared for the safety of the men. But they 

 came back, with the storm roaring behind them ; 

 first Jerry, then Abia, then others in twos and 

 threes, all with the same tale "Ajornarpok (it is 

 impossible), we must start again to-morrow." " Are 

 you all safe ? " I asked them ; and Jerry counted them 

 over on his fingers. " Yes," he said, " we are all 

 here : all except Johannes." " And Johannes, where 

 is he ? " " Atsuk " the laconic answer, so character- 

 istic of the Eskimo " I don't know." But I was 

 anxious. " Unet," they said as if to say, " Just 

 don't you bother your head about Johannes ; you 

 can't lose him, we all know that. He's safe enough." 



Next day was stormy again, and there was no 

 Johannes. I thought of search parties, but the 

 people only smiled ; and, when the weather cleared, 

 off they went again with their dogs and their sledges, 

 with never a word about the missing man. For ten 

 days nothing happened ; then the women waiting on 

 the hill yelled " Kemmutsit, kemmutsit " (a sledge, a 

 sledge), and I climbed the hill and saw a dot of a 

 sledge and a tiny blur of dogs with an active little 

 ant of a driver slipping slowly down from the woods 

 at the mouth of the big river to the wood-cutters' 

 track over the ice. 



"Johannes, immakka," they said, and strolled 

 down the hill to meet him. And Johannes it was, 

 smiling and happy, and brown and well; proudly 

 shoving at a sledge piled high with meat and skins, 

 and shouting and cooing and chuckling to the toiling 

 dogs. 



