CHAPTER XI 



AN ARCTIC CHRISTMAS WITH AN ENGLISH COUNTRY 



CENTLEMAN 



When we started from Shingle Point it had been the 

 understanding that after a few days' visit with Ovayuak, 

 Roxy would take me to Harrison's camp on the Eskimo 

 Lakes, two or three days' journey south, for I planned 

 to spend Christmas with Harrison and then come back 

 to the coast to live the rest of the winter at Tuktuyaktok. 

 But shortly after we arrived Roxy suggested to me that 

 Ovayuak had plenty of dogs and could easily take me 

 across to Harrison's, while his own dogs were tired out 

 and weakened by having gone several days without food. 

 I said that this would be all right if he would arrange with 

 Ovayuak for doing it. Roxy replied that he had already 

 spoken to Ovayuak and that it was nothing but fun for 

 Ovayuak or one of his men to make the trip and that 

 it had been agreed between them that I was to pay him 

 (Roxy) both for bringing me to Tuktuyaktok and also 

 for taking me south to Harrison's. Accordingly, I secured 

 from Ovayuak the sixty-pound chest of tea and the two 

 Hudson's Bay blankets. The day after receiving this 

 pay Roxy and Sitsak started back for the camp at Shingle 

 Point. 



The week before Christmas, I asked Ovayuak one day 

 when he would lake me over to Harrison's, whereupon he 

 was greatly surprised and said that he had not considered 

 making any such trip. When I told him about the ar- 



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