North-Pole Voyages Part 4

CHAPTER VIII.

TREATY MAKING.

THE stock of fresh provisions was now alarmingly low. To secure a fresh supply, Dr. Kane and Hans started with the dog team on a seal hunt. The doctor was armed with his Kentucky rifle, and Hans with a harpoon and attached line. They carried a light Esquimo boat to secure the prey if shot. They expected to find seal after a ten miles' run, but the ice was solid until they had traveled another hour. Now they entered upon an icy plain smooth as a house floor. On the dogs galloped, in fine spirits, seeming to antic.i.p.ate the shout which soon came from Hans--"Pusey, puseymut!"--seal, seal! Just ahead were crowds of seals playing in the water. But the joy of the hunters was instantly turned into a chill of horror. The ice was bending under the weight of the sledge, and rolling in wavy swells before it, as if made of leather. To pause was certain death to dogs and men. The solid floe was a mile ahead. Hans shouted fiercely to his dogs, and added the merciless crack of his whip to give speed to his team; but the poor creatures were already terror-stricken, and rushed forward like a steam-car. A profound silence followed, as painful as the hush of the wind before the destructive tornado. Nothing more could be done; the faithful dogs were doing their utmost to save themselves and their masters. They pa.s.sed through a scattered group of seals, which, breast-high out of water, mocked them with their curious, complacent gaze. The rolling, crackling ice increased its din, and, when within fifty paces of the solid floe the frightened dogs became dismayed, and they paused! In went the left runner and the leading dog, then followed the entire left-hand runner. In the next instant Dr. Kane, the sledge and dogs, were mixed up in the snow and water. Hans had stepped off upon ice which had not yet given way, and was uttering in his broken English, piteous moans, while he in vain reached forward to help his master. He was ordered to lay down, spread out his hands and feet, and draw himself to the floe by striking his knife into the ice.

The doctor cut the leader's harness and let him scramble out, for he was crying touchingly, and drowning his master by his caresses. Relieved of the dog he tried the sledge, but it sunk under him; he then paddled round the hole endeavoring to mount the ice, but it gave way at every effort, thus enlarging the sphere of operation most uncomfortably, and exhausting his strength. Hans in the mean time had reached solid footing, and was on his knees praying incoherently in English and Esquimo, and at every crushing-in of the ice which plunged his master afresh into the sea exclaimed, "G.o.d!" When the fatal crisis was just at hand, deliverance came by a _seeming_ accident. How often does G.o.d deliver by such seeming accidents! One of the dogs still remained attached to the sledge, and in struggling to clear himself drew one of the runners broadside against the edge of the circle. It was the drowning man's last chance. He threw himself on his back so as to lessen his weight, and placed the nape of his neck on the rim of the ice opposite to but not far from the sledge. He then drew his legs up slowly and placed the ball of his moccasin foot against the runner, pressing cautiously and steadily, listening the while to the sound of the half-yielding ice against which the other runner rested, as to a note which proclaimed his sentence of life or death. The ice, holding the sledge, only faintly yielded, while he felt his wet fur jumper sliding up the surface; now his shoulders are on; now his whole body steadily ascends; he is safe.

Hans rubbed his master with frantic earnestness until the flesh glowed again. The dogs were all saved, but the sledge, Esquimo boat, tent, guns, and snow-shoes were all left frozen in to await a return trip. A run of twelve miles brought them, worn and weary, but full of grat.i.tude, to the brig. The fire was kindled, one of the few remaining birds cooked, a warm welcome given, so that the peril was forgotten except in the occasion it gave for increased love to the _Deliverer_.

We have had no occasion to notice the Esquimo since the escape from prison of young Myouk. Soon after Dr. Hayes's party left, three natives came. They had evidently noted the departure of half of the number of the strangers, and came to learn the condition of those left behind. It was Dr. Kane's policy to conciliate them, while carrying toward them a steady, and when needed, as it was often, a restraining hand.

These visitors were quartered in a tent in the hold. A copper lamp, a cooking-basin, and a full supply of fat for fuel, was given them. They ate, slept, awoke, ate and slept again. Dr. Kane left them eating at two o'clock in the morning when he retired to the cabin to sleep. They seemed soon after to be sleeping so soundly that the watch set over them also slept. In the morning there were no Esquimo on board. They had stolen the lamp, boiler, and cooking-pot used at their feast; to these they added the best dog--the only one not too weary from the late excursion to travel. Besides, finding some buffalo robes and an india-rubber cloth accidentally left on the floe, they took them along also.

This would not do. The savages must be taught to fear as well as to respect and love the white men. Morton and Riley, two of the best walkers, were sent in hot pursuit. Reaching the hut at Anoatok, they found young Myouk with the wives of two absent occupants, the latter making themselves delightfully comfortable, having tailored already the stolen robes into garments worn on their backs. By searching, the cooking utensils, and other articles stolen from the brig but not missed, were found.

The white officers of the law acted promptly, as became their dignity.

They stripped the women of these stolen goods and tied them. They were then loaded with all the articles stolen, to which was added as much walrus meat of their own as would pay their jail fees. The three were then marched peremptorily back to the brig; though it was thirty miles they did not complain, neither did their police guardians in walking the twice thirty. It was scarcely twenty-four hours after these thieves had left the brig with their booty before they were prisoners in the hold.

"A dreadful white man" was placed over them as keeper, who never spoke to them except in words of terrifying reproof, and whose scowl exhibited a studied variety of threatening and satanic expressions. The women were deprived of the comfort of even Myouk's company. He was dispatched to Metek, "head-man of Etah and others," "with the message of a melo-dramatic tyrant," to negotiate for their ransom. For five long days the women sighed and cried, and sung in solitary confinement, though their appet.i.tes continued excellent. At last the great Metek and another Esquimo notable arrived, drawing quite a sledge load of returned stolen goods. Now commenced the treaty making. There were "big talks," and a display on the part of Dr. Kane of the splendors and resources of his capital, its arts and sciences, not forgetting the "fire-death," whose terrific power so amazed the Etah dignitaries. On the part of the Esquimo there were many adjournments of the diplomatic conferences to eat and sleep. This was well for the explorers no doubt, as plenty of sleep and a good dinner are very pacific, it is well known, in their influence even on savages. In the final result the Esquimo agreed: Not to steal, to bring fresh meat, to sell or lend dogs, to attend the white men when desired, and to show them where to find the game. On the part of _Kablunah_ (the white men) Dr. Kane promised: Not to visit the _Inuit_ (Esquimo) with death or sorcery; to shoot for them on the hunt; to welcome them on board the ship; to give them presents of needles, pins, two kinds of knives, a hoop, three bits of hard wood, some kinds of fat, an awl, and some sewing-thread; to trade with them of these, and all other things they might want, for walrus and seal meat of the first quality.

Dr. Kane sent Hans and Morton to Etah, on the return of Metek, as his representatives, and this treaty was there ratified in a full a.s.sembly of its people.

This treaty was really of much importance to the famishing, ice-bound, scurvy-smitten strangers. It was faithfully kept on the part of the natives, but it was believed that the example of the white man's prodigious power given by Morton and Riley, in the tramp of sixty miles in twenty-four hours, had quite as much to do with its faithful observance as any regard to their promise. They might not understand the binding nature of promises however solemnly made, but they could comprehend the meaning of strong arms and swift feet.

Having made peace with the Etahites, Dr. Kane sent M'Gary and Morton to the hut at Anoatok on a like errand. They found there of men, Myouk, Ootuniah, and Awatok--Seal Bladder--who were at first shy. The rogue, Myouk, suspected their visit might mean to him another arrest. Seeing it did not, all went merry as a marriage-bell. The treaty was ratified by acclamation.

CHAPTER IX.

ARCTIC HUNTING.

EARLY in October the Esquimo disappeared from the range of travel from the brig. Hans and Hickey were sent to the hunting grounds, and they returned with the unwelcome news, no walrus, no Esquimo. Where could they have gone? Were they hovering on the track of the escaping party under Dr. Hayes? and where were these? Would the natives return from a trip south, and bring any news of the battle they were fighting with the ice and cold?

While such queries may have been indulged by the brig party, they had serious thoughts concerning their own condition. Their fresh provisions were nearly exhausted. Without walrus or bear meat, their old enemy, scurvy, would come down upon them like an armed man. There was now plainly another occasion for one of those accidental occurrences, through which the eye of a devout Christian sees G.o.d's kind hand. In the midst of these painful thoughts the shout by Hans was heard ringing through the brig: "Nannook! nannook!"

"A bear! a bear!" chimed in Morton.

The men seized their guns and ran on deck. The dogs were already in battle array with the bear, which was attended by a five-months-old cub. Not a gun was in readiness on the instant, and while they were being loaded the canines were having rough sport with bruin. Tudla, a champion fighter, had been seized twice, by the nape of his neck, and made to travel several yards without touching the ground. Jenny, a favorite in the sledge, had made a grand somerset by a slight jerk of the head of the bear, and had alighted senseless. Old Whitey, brave but not bear-wise, had rushed headlong into the combat, and was yelping his utter dissatisfaction with the result while stretched helpless upon the snow. Nannook considered the field of battle already won, and proceeded, as victors have always done, to a very cool investigation of the spoils.

She first turned over a beef barrel, and began to nose out the choice bits for herself and child. But there was a party interested in this operation whom she had not consulted. Their first protest was in the form of a pistol ball in the side of her cub. This, to say the least, was rather a harsh beginning. The next hint was a rifle ball in the side of the mother, which she resented by taking her child between her hind legs and retreating behind the beef-house. Here, with her strong forearms, she pulled down three solid rows of beef barrels which made one wall of the house. She then mounted the rubbish, seized a half barrel of herring with her teeth, and with it beat a retreat. Turning her back on the enemy was not safe, for she immediately received, at half pistol range, six buck shots. She fell, but was instantly on her feet again, trotting off with her cub under her nose. She would have escaped after all but for two of the dogs. These belonged to the immediate region, and had been trained for the bear hunt. They embarra.s.sed her speed but did not attack her. One would run along ahead of her, so near as to provoke the bear to attempt to catch him, and then he would give her a useless chase to the right or left, the other one, at the right moment, making a diversion by a nip in her rear. So coolly and systematically was this done that poor Nannook was hindered and exhausted without being able to hurt her tormentors in the least.

This game of the dogs brought again Dr. Kane and Hans on the field of conflict. They found the bear still holding out in the running fight, and making good speed away from the brig. Two rifle b.a.l.l.s brought her to a stand-still. She faced about, took her little one between her fore legs, and growled defiance. It took six more b.a.l.l.s to lay her lifeless on the blood-stained snow!

This method of conquering the foe was no doubt, from the bear point of view, mean and cowardly; instead of the hand-to-paw fight, recognized as the Arctic lawful way of fighting, it was sending fire-death at a safe distance for the attacking party. With her own chosen weapons--two powerful arms, and a set of almost resistless teeth--the bear was the stronger party. But then it was the old game of brains against brute force, with the almost sure result. As to the cruelty, the bear had no reason to complain. She came to the brig seeking, if haply she might find, a man, or men, to appease her craving hunger and feed her child.

The men sought and obtained her life that they might stay the progress of their bitter enemy, the scurvy, and save their own lives!

When the mother fell, her child sprung upon her body and made a fierce defense. After much trouble, and, we should think, some danger from her paws and teeth, both of which she used as if trained for the fight, she was, caught with a line looped into a running knot between her jaws and the back of her head, somewhat as farmers catch hogs for the slaughter.

She was marched off to the brig and chained outside, causing a great uproar among the dogs.

The mother-bear's carca.s.s weighed when cleaned three hundred pounds; before dressing, the body weighed six hundred and fifty. The _little_ one weighed on her feet one hundred and fourteen pounds. They both proved most savory meat, and were eaten with grat.i.tude, as the special gifts of the great Giver.

This bear capture was soon followed by one no less exciting and truly Arctic in its character. It was the hunt and capture of a walrus, the lion of the sea, as the bear is the tiger of the ice. The story is as follows:---

About the middle of October Morton and Hans were sent again to try to find the Esquimo. They reached on the fourth day a little village beyond Anoatok, seventy miles from the brig. Here they found four huts, two occupied and two forsaken. In one was Myouk, his parents and his brother and sister; in the other was Awahtok, Ootuniah, their wives, and three young children. The strangers were made to feel at home. Their moccasins were dried, their feet rubbed, two lamps set ablaze to cook them a supper, and a walrus skin spread on the raised floor for them to stretch and rest their weary limbs. The lamps and the addition to the huts'

company sent the thermometer up to ninety degrees above zero, while outside it was thirty below. The natives endured this degree of heat finely, as the men and children wore only the apparel nature gave them, and the women made only a slight, but becoming, addition to it. The strangers after devouring six small sea-birds a piece enjoyed a night of profuse perspiration and sound sleep.

In the morning Morton perceived that Myouk and his father were preparing for a walrus hunt, and he cordially invited himself and Hans to go with them. The two strangers accepted the invitation thus given, and the party of four were soon off.

A large size walrus is eighteen feet long, with a tusk thirty inches.

His whole development is elephantine, and his look grim and ferocious.

The Esquimo of this party carried three sledges; one they hid under the snow and ice on the way, and the other two were carried to the hunting ground at the open water, about ten miles from the huts. They had nine dogs to these two sledges, and by turns one man rode while the other walked.

As they neared the new ice, and saw by the murky fog that the open water was near, the Esquimo removed their hoods and listened. After a while Myouk's countenance showed that the wished-for sound had entered his ear, though Morton, as attentively listening, could hear nothing. Soon they were startled by the bellowing of a walrus bull; the noise, round and full, was something between the mooing of a cow and the deep baying of a mastiff, varied by an oft-repeated quick bark. The performer was evidently pleased with his own music, for it continued without cessation while our hunters crept forward stealthily in single file. When within half a mile of some discolored spots showing very thin ice surrounded by that which was thicker, they scattered, and each man crawled toward a separate pool, Morton on his hands and knees following Myouk. Soon the walruses were in sight. They were five in number, at times rising altogether out of the deep, breaking the ice and giving an explosive puff which might have been heard, through the thin, clear atmosphere, a mile away. Two grim-looking males were noticeable as the leaders of the group.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Walruses--A Family Party.]

Now came the fight between Myouk, the crafty, expert hunter, and a strong, maddened, persistent walrus. Morton was the interested looker-on, following the hunter like a shadow, ready, if it had been wanted, to put in his contribution to the fight in the form of a rifle-ball. When the walrus's head is above water, and peering curiously around, the hunter is flat and still. As the head begins to disappear in the deep he is up and stirring, and ready to dart toward the game. From his hiding-place behind a projecting ice knoll the hunter seems not only to know when his victim will return, but where he will rise. In this way, hiding and darting forward, Myouk, with Morton at his heels, approaches the pool near the edge of which the walruses are at play. Now the stolid face of Myouk glows with animation; he lies still, biding his time, a coil of walrus hide many yards in length lying at his side. He quickly slips one end of the line into an iron barb, holding the other, the looped end, in his hand, and fixes the barb to a locket on the end of a shaft made of a unicorn's horn. Now the water is in motion, and only twelve feet from him the walrus rises, puffing with pent up respiration, and looks grimly and complacently around. What need _he_ fear, the mighty monarch of the Arctic sea! Myouk coolly, slowly rises, throws back his right arm, while his left arm lies close to his side. The walrus looks round again and shakes his dripping head. Up goes the hunter's left arm. His victim rises breast-high to give one curious look before he plunges, and the swift, barbed shaft is buried in his vitals! In an instant the walrus is down, down in the deep, while Myouk is making his best speed from the battlefield, holding firmly the looped end of his harpoon-line, at the same time paying out the coil as he runs. He has s.n.a.t.c.hed up and carries in one hand a small stick of bone rudely pointed with iron; he stops, drives it into the ice and fastens his line to it, pressing it to the ice with his foot.

Now commence the frantic struggles of the wounded walrus. Myouk keeps his station, now letting out his line, and then drawing it in. His victim, rising out of the water, endeavors to throw himself upon the ice, as if to rush at his tormenter. The ice breaks under his great weight, and he roars fearfully with rage. For a moment all is quiet. The hunter knows what it means, and he is on the alert. Crash goes the ice, and up come two walrusses only a few yards from where he stands; they aimed at the very spot but will do better next time. But when the game comes up where he last saw the hunter he has pulled up his stake and run off, line in hand, and fixed it as before, but in a new direction. This play goes on until the wounded beast becomes exhausted, and is approached and pierced with the lance by Myouk.

Four hours this fight went on, the walrus receiving seventy lance thrusts, dangling all the while at the end of the line with the cruel harpoon fixed in his body. When dying at last, hooked by his tusk to the margin of the ice, his female, which had faithfully followed all his b.l.o.o.d.y fortune, still swam at his side; she retired only when her spouse was dead, and she herself was p.r.i.c.ked by the lance.

Morton says the last three hours wore the aspect of a doubtful battle.

He witnessed it with breathless interest.

The game was, by a sort of "double purchase," a clever contrivance of the Esquimo, drawn upon the ice and cut up at leisure. Its weight was estimated at seven hundred pounds.

The intestines and the larger part of the carca.s.s, were buried in the crevices of an iceberg--a splendid ice-house! Two sledges were loaded with the remainder, and the hunters started toward home. As they came near the village the women came out to meet them; the shout of welcome brought all hands with their knives. Each one having his portion a.s.signed, according to a well understood Esquimo rule, the evening was given up to eating. In groups of two or three around a forty pound joint, squatting crook-legged, knife in hand, they cut, ate, and slept, and cut and ate again. Hans, in his description of the feast to Dr.

Kane, says: "Why, Cappen Ken, sir, even the children ate all night. You know the little two-year-old that Aroin carried in her hood--the one that bit you when you tickled it?"

"Yes."

"Well, Cappen Ken, sir, that baby cut for herself, sir, with a knife made out of an iron hoop, and so heavy it could hardly lift it, cut and ate, sir, and ate and cut, as long as I looked at it."

Morton and Hans returned to the brig with two hundred pounds of walrus meat and two foxes, to make glad the hearts of their comrades.

Besides these Arctic monsters of the sea, and s.h.a.ggy prowlers of the land and ice, there was another sort of game, requiring a different kind of hunting, found nearer home.

We have related the experiment, a year before this, of the explorers with the rats. They had failed to smoke them out by a villainous compound, and, as the experience came near burning up the vessel, it was not repeated. They bred like locusts in spite of the darkness, cold, and short rations, and went every-where--under the stove, into the steward's drawers, into the cushions, about the beds, among the furs, woolens, and specimens of natural history. They took up their abode among the bedding of the men in the forecastle, and in such other places as seemed to them cosy and comfortable. When their rights as tenants were disputed they fought for them with boldness and skill.

At one time a mother rat had chosen a bear-skin mitten as a homestead for herself and family of little ones. Dr. Kane thrust his hand into it not knowing that it was occupied, and received a sharp bite. Of course his hand left the premises in rather quick time, and before he could suck the blood from his finger the family had disappeared, taking their home with them.

Rhina, a brave bear-dog, which had come out of encounters with his s.h.a.ggy majesty with special honors, was sent down into the citadel of the rats. She lay down with composure and slept for a while. But the vermin gnawed the h.o.r.n.y skin of her paws, nipped her on this side, and bit her on that, and dodged into their hiding-places. They were so many, and so nimble, that poor Rhina yelled in vexation and pain. She was taken on deck to her kennel, a cowed and vanquished dog.

Hans, true to his hunter's propensity, amused himself during the dreary hours of his turn on the night watch, by shooting them with his bow and arrow. Dr. Kane had these carefully dressed and made into a soup, of which he educated himself to eat, to the advantage of his health. No other one of the vessel's company cared to share his pottage.

Hans had one compet.i.tor in this "small deer" hunting, as the sailors called it. Dr. Kane had caught a young fox alive, and domesticated it in the cabin. These "deer" were not quick enough to escape his nimble feet and sharp teeth. But unfortunately he would kill only when and what he wanted to eat.