n6 HUNTERS OF THE GREAT NORTH 



of different Eskimo traveling companions but never one 

 with such contradictory qualities as Roxy. To begin 

 with, he was about the cleverest Eskimo I ever saw. In 

 some respects he was not far from being a confidence man. 

 As he had shown when we nearly lost our lives in the 

 autumn gale, he had unlimited courage. I have never 

 known any one upon whose quick wit and decisive action 

 I would have been so willing to rely in an emergency of 

 life and death. He was cheerful under misfortune but 

 sulky and morose if he imagined himself to have a griev- 

 ance. In some ways he had the white man's point of 

 view perfectly after his long association with the whalers. 

 In ether respects his Eskimo mental attitude was still un- 

 modified. 



I had a good example of the Eskimo point of view when 

 we had been on the road seven days, which was as long as 

 the entire journey to Tuktuyaktok had been estimated 

 to take. On account of having lost our way we had made 

 only half the distance. The snow was deeper and softer 

 than had been expected and we were moving slowly. I 

 noticed that the two dogs I had bought from Sten were 

 not pulling as well as Roxy's dogs. When I remarked 

 upon this, Roxy said rather sulkily that it was no wonder, 

 for the poor dogs had had nothing to eat for several days. 

 This astounded me, for I knew that there was still some 

 fish on our sled, nor did I know any reason why there 

 should be nothing to eat for my dogs when his were well 

 fed. I had understood it to be a part of our bargain that 

 he would provide all the dog feed. He said, however, 

 that his bargain had been that he would supply a certain 

 number of dogs and T a certain number and that it was 

 always the Eskimo eustom that when two men traveled 

 together each supplied food for his own dogs. This was 



