274 HUNTERS OF THE GREAT NORTH 



meant he might have found a seal hole and with a cane 

 we poked around in the snow for a while. The scent 

 proved false, for all we found were signs that a fox had 

 been there earlier in the winter. 



The first indication having proved worthless, we con- 

 tinued our zigzag stroll. Half a mile further on the dog 

 stopped again to sniff and his master probed into the 

 snowdrift with his cane. After a dozen or two stabs, 

 each of which met the solid ice below, the cane went 

 deeper than before. It had struck the seal's breathing 

 hole and slipped through into the water beneath. 



This snowdrift was comparatively soft. The hunter 

 now put his foot upon the snow just where he had dis- 

 covered the seal's hole and pressed down the snow firmly. 

 He then took from his hunting kit an ivory rod about 

 as big round as a knitting needle and twice as long. This 

 rod had a little disc on one end of it the size of a ten- 

 cent piece, or smaller. At the other end of the rod was 

 an eyelet through which was threaded a string about a 

 foot long fastened to a sort of ivory pin. Through the 

 hole made by his cane the hunter now stuck down his 

 ivory probe so that the end with the disc on it was a 

 few inches below the surface of the water in the seal's 

 hole. Then he packed enough loose snow around the 

 probe so that it did not slip in further. He then stuck 

 the pin into the snow about a foot away. This pre- 

 caution was taken so that the hunting contrivance should 

 not be lost when it came to spearing the seal. 



It is now time to explain how the seal happened to 

 be living just here under the ice. The preceding autumn 

 had found him and all the other seals of the neighborhood 

 swimming around freely in open water. Then the first 

 frosts had come and young ice had formed one night. 



