THE HUNTER'S RETURN 



the homes of families of hunters who were plying 

 their craft in their acccustomed way, and who would 

 return when winter came again and turn them once 

 more into homes. 



After the last of the spring flitters had gone a 

 change came over the ice on the bay. Cracks and 

 pools appeared, scraps of wood along the sledge 

 track sank into the ice by the warmth they absorbed 

 from the sun, and dotted the path with holes ; the 

 cracks grew and multiplied and met, the tides oozed 

 upon the beach and the stones began to show, until, 

 slowly and quietly, the great stretch of ice changed 

 from a floating sheet to a close-packed mass of 

 floating pieces. The tides shuffled them and spread 

 them ; and, by the last week in June, we were only 

 dting for a strong west wind to carry the ice away 



the open ocean and set us a-talking of summer. 



I took one of my walks through the silent village 

 irly in the July of 1904, enjoying all the new ex- 

 tilaration of open water (for the ice had floated off 

 the day before and made us feel that we were at last 

 living by the seaside again), I heard a sudden shout. 

 A babel of shrill voices was rising from the blubber 

 yard, where the women were chopping up blubber 

 for the steeping-tanks ; and as I turned to pick my 

 way along the sloppy path, all criss-crossed and 

 channelled by scores of tiny rivulets that trickled 

 from the melting snow on the hillside, I fell in with 

 a rushing procession of children and dogs all making 

 for the landing-place. The jetty in front of the 

 Mission house looked busy ; it was crowded with 

 workpeople, all yelling " Umiat " (a boat) at the top 

 of their voices. The blubber- women had left their 

 greasy task, and were there in all the realism of oil- 



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