216 HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC 



An accident to my gun had, however, occurred m our 

 diflBcult scramble over the fallen timber on the way up. 

 I was carrjdng it in a case in both hands as I plodded 

 along, when a snag tripped me. Down I came and broke 

 the rifle at the grip. It was a cross-grained piece of 

 wood. This accident threatened to delay our hunting 

 for several days until we could get the other gun up 

 from the lake. But Bill and I succeeded in repairing it. 



Search revealed two small wire nails in the window 

 frame of ''Hotel Steve." These were carefully straight- 

 ened to drive into the stock. To prevent them from 

 bending or splitting the hard walnut wood we cut a half 

 dozen little chips of soft spruce and drove the nails 

 through a stack of these in such a way that just the 

 points projected from the bottom of the pile. A hght 

 tap of the axe easily started the nail into the gun stock 

 and as we drove it dowTi we spUt off the top chip with a 

 knife and drove the head down to the next piece. In 

 this way we kept the nails from bending and finally had 

 them accurately in place. A lot of pitch from the spruce 

 trees was then gathered and melted in a pan with a little 

 bacon fat. This we spread over the splice and while the 

 pitch was still soft wrapped the part tightly with fish 

 twine. The result was entirely satisfactory, and for the 

 following month the rifle worked as well as ever and did 

 not break or loosen again. 



Before this accident occurred I had lopped the head 

 off a plump grouse with a bullet as it sat in a spruce tree 

 and thus made sure of our first supper. Epicure could 

 not cry for a more savory morsel. 



