84 HUNTERS OF THE GREAT NORTH 



saw tie water pouring over her lee side like a great river 

 over a precipice. What had been a peaceful little eddy- 

 behind a sort of pier when we sailed west, was now about 

 as much of a shelter as a whirlpool under a waterfall. 



In the beginning of the gale it had been Oblutok's job 

 to do the bailing, but shortly after we passed Kay Point 

 he had become so paralyzed with fright as to be entirely 

 useless. Mrs. Roxy was a better sailor than I and under- 

 stood more clearly how to do what she was told, so it 

 was she who stood by for any emergency help, while 

 I took the job of bailing, which required no orders but 

 only incessant work. 



From King Point to Shingle Point we felt each mile 

 as if we should never stay afloat another mile. Roxy 

 remarked that speculating upon so doleful a possibility 

 was unwise, that when the choice was between cheerful- 

 ness and gloom, good cheer was always to be preferred, 

 and that the best way to keep your spirits up was to 

 sing. I was too busy for singing and am not sure that 

 I felt like it. Roxy tried first to sing various ragtime 

 songs and hymns he had learned from whalers and mis- 

 sionaries, but when he found I did not join in he said 

 that he might as well then sing Eskimo songs which had 

 more spirit to them. This also had the advantage of 

 enabling his wife to join in. 



I have not described Shingle Point and I had never 

 until now made for myself a complete mental picture of 

 it. But with our li tiding on its shape and posi- 



tion, I was able to build up from various memories a 

 diagram of it and of the safe harbor behind. Thousands 

 of years ago there must have been here a high cape and 

 no sandspit. Then in the lee of the cape the currents 

 began to build up a finger of sand, pointing straight east 



