160 HUNTERS OF THE GREAT NORTH 



we let the fire go out preparatory to packing up the stove 

 and the rest of our gear to continue the journey. 



During the evening I had asked Ovayuak whether 

 there was no danger of the house caving in on us during 

 the night and he had laughed at me. When we were 

 about to start, this conversation apparently recurred to 

 him, so he asked me if I would like to try how fragile 

 the house was by climbing on top of it. I hesitated a 

 moment, and he ran up on the roof himself and stood 

 on the peak. I then clambered up after him. Had there 

 been ten of us our combined weight would not have 

 broken the house down. \ The structure had been very 

 fragile in the evening just 'while we were putting it up, 

 but after it had once been dampened by the overheating 

 of the interior and had then been turned partially to ice, 

 nothing but a sharp blow could have broken it. ) To begin 

 with, the half-solidified blocks of snow were now much 

 stronger than they had been; for another thing, the shape 

 of the house was just right to sustain a heavy weight. 

 The case of an egg is analogous. You can easily break 

 an egg with a sharp blow, but it is not so easy to crush 

 a raw egg by squeezing it in the hand if the pressure 

 is applied uniformly. 



As we traveled west, the skies were clear every day 

 and the cold gradually increased. I did not have a 

 thermometer with me but I should judge it was fre- 

 quently 35° and even 40 ° below zero: possibly it may 

 have been 45 ° below. This was no colder than what I 

 had been used to in Dakota. It surprised Ovayuak to 

 see how naturally I took to the conditions and he began 

 to believe me when I told him that certain parts of the 

 white man's country were as cold in winter as his. 



On the twelfth day of our journey we arrived at 



