Ungava Bob Part 23

It was a great relief to Bob to know that she had not perished. The old woman had only been able to keep from freezing to death, as he learned, by hollowing out a place in a snow-bank in which to lie and letting the snow drift thickly over her and remaining there until the storm had spent itself.

"Sure I'm glad t' see she back again," thought Bob, and he voiced the sentiment to Matuk.

"Atsuk"--I don't know--said the Eskimo with a shrug of the shoulders.

While, as we have seen, none of the Eskimos would take the place of Akonuk and Matuk, they gave them sufficient seal meat and blubber for a two weeks' journey, and early the next morning the march eastward was resumed.

Bob was now driven to eating seal meat, as all his other provisions were exhausted, though, fortunately, he still had an abundance of tea.

He had often eaten seal meat at home and was rather fond of it when it was properly cooked, but now no wood with which to make a fire was to be had. The land was absolutely barren, and even the moss was so deeply hidden beneath the snow it could not be resorted to for this purpose. Evenings in the igloo he boiled some meat over the stone lamp--enough to last him through the following day--but at best he could get it but partially cooked. However, he soon learned not to mind this much, for hunger is the best imaginable sauce, and in the cold of the Arctic north one can eat with a relish what could not be endured in a milder climate.

For several days they traversed mountain pa.s.ses where they were shut in by towering, rugged peaks which seemed to reach to the very heavens. Bleak and desolate as the landscape was it possessed a magnificence and grandeur that demanded admiration and called forth Bob's constant wonder. He would gaze up at the mysterious white summits and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e,

"'Tis grand! 'Tis wonderful grand!"

Such mountains he had never seen before, and like all wilderness dwellers he was a lover of Nature's beauties and a close observer of her wonders.

It was near the middle of April now and the sun's rays, reflected by the snow, were growing dazzlingly bright and beginning to affect their eyes. Goggles should have been worn as a protection against this glare but they had none and did not trouble to make them until one night Matuk found that he was overtaken by a slight attack of snow-blindness. This is an extremely painful affliction which does not permit the sufferer to approach the light or, in fact, so much as open his eyes without experiencing agony. The sensation is that of having innumerable splinters driven into the eyeb.a.l.l.s with the lids when opened and closed grating over the splinters.

While they were waiting for Matuk to recover his eyesight Akonuk and Bob removed one of the wooden cross-bars from the komatik and with their knives cut from it three pieces each long enough to fit over the eyes for a pair of goggles. These were rounded to fit the face and a place whittled out for the nose to fit into. Then hollow places were cut large enough to permit the eyelids to open and close in them, and opposite each eye hollow a narrow slit for the wearer to look through.

Then the interior of the eye places were blackened with smoke from the stone lamp, and a thong of sealskin was fastened to each end of the goggles with which to tie them in place upon the head.

Thus a pair of goggles was ready for each when, after a three days'

rest Matuk's eyes were well enough for him to continue the journey, and by constantly wearing them on days when the sun shone, further danger of snow-blindness was averted.

Two days later, upon emerging from a mountain pa.s.s, they suddenly saw stretching far away to the eastward the great ocean ice. The sight sent the blood tingling through Bob's veins. Nearly half the journey from Ungava to Eskimo Bay had been accomplished!

"Th' coast! Th' coast!" shouted Bob. "Now I'll be gettin' home inside a month!"

He began at once to plan the surprise he had in store for the folk and an early trip that he would make over to the Post, when he would tell Bessie about his great "cruise" and hear her say that she was glad to see him back again. But Fortune does not wait upon human plans and Bob's fort.i.tude was yet to be tried as it never had been tried before.

That afternoon an Eskimo village of snow igloos was reached. The Eskimos swarmed out to meet the visitors and gave them a whole-souled welcome, and in an hour they were quite settled for a brief stay in the new quarters.

Akonuk told Bob that now after the dogs, which were very badly spent, had a few days in which to rest, he and Matuk would turn back to Ungava. They would try to arrange for two more Eskimos with a fresh team to go on with him, but as for themselves, even were the dogs in condition to travel, they did not know the trail beyond this point.

The Eskimos here, like those they had met on the island at Kangeva, were engaged in seal hunting, and none of the men seemed to care to leave their work for a long, hard journey south. They did not say, however, that they would not go. When they were asked their answer was:

"In a little while--perhaps."

This was very unsatisfactory to Bob in his anxious frame of mind. But he had learned that Eskimos must be left to bide their time, and that no amount of coaxing would hurry them, so he tried to await their moods in patience. He understood the reluctance of the men to go away during one of the best hunting seasons of the year and could not find fault with them for it.

The seals were the mainstay of their living and to lose the hunt might mean privation. They were in need of the skins for clothing, kayaks and summer tents, and the flesh and blubber for food for themselves and their dogs, and the oil for their stone lamps.

Later in the season they would harpoon the animals from their kayaks, but this was the great harvest time when they killed them by spearing through holes in the ice where the seals came at intervals to breathe, for a seal will die unless it can get fresh air occasionally. Early in the morning each Eskimo would take up his position near one of these breathing holes, and there, with spear poised, not moving so much as a foot, sometimes for hours at a time, await patiently the appearance of a seal, which, having many similar holes, might not chance to come to this particular one the whole day.

The spear used had a long, wooden handle, with a barbed point made of metal or ivory, and so arranged that the barbed point came off the handle after it had been driven into the animal. To the point was fastened one end of a long sealskin line, the other end of which the hunter tied about his waist.

The moment a seal's nose made its appearance at the breathing hole the watchful Eskimo drove the spear into its body. Then began a tug of war between man and seal, and sometimes the Eskimos had narrow escapes from being pulled into the holes.

The seals of Labrador, it should be explained, are the hair, and not the fur seals such as are found in the Alaskan waters and the South Sea. There are five varieties of them, the largest of which is the hood seal and the smallest the doter or harbour seal. The square flipper also grows to a very large size. The other two kinds are the jar and the harp.

These all have different names applied to them according to their age.

Thus a new-born harp is a "puppy," then a "white coat"; when it is old enough to take to the water, which is within a fortnight after birth, it becomes a "paddler," a little later a "bedlamer," then a "young harp" and finally a harp. The handsomest of them all is the "ranger,"

as the young doter is called.

Finally, one evening when all the men were a.s.sembled in the igloos after their day's hunt, Akonuk announced that he and Matuk were to return home the next morning. This renewed the discussion as to who should go on with Bob, and the upshot of it was that two young fellows--Netseksoak and Aluktook--with the promise that Mr. Forbes would reward them for aiding to bring the letters which Bob carried, volunteered to make the journey.

This settled the matter to Bob's satisfaction and it was agreed that, as the season was far advanced, it would be necessary to start at once in order to give the two men time to reach home again before the spring break-up of the ice.

Long before daylight the next morning the Eskimos were lashing the load on the komatik and at dawn the dogs were harnessed and everything ready. Bob said good-bye to Akonuk and Matuk and the two teams took different directions and were soon lost to each other's view.

"'Twill not be long now," said Bob to himself, "an' we gets t' th'

Bay."

The sun at midday was now so warm that it softened the snow, which, freezing towards evening, made a hard ice crust over which the komatik slipped easily and permitted of very fast travelling until the snow began to soften again towards noon. Therefore the early part of the day was to be taken advantage of.

The new team, containing eleven dogs, was really made up of two small teams, one of six dogs belonging to Netseksoak and the other of five dogs the property of Aluktook. At first the two sets of dogs were inclined to be quarrelsome and did not work well together. At the very start they had a pitched battle which resulted in the crippling of Aluktook's leader to such an extent that for two days it was almost useless.

However, with the good going fast time was made. Usually they kept to the sea ice, but sometimes took short cuts across necks of land where, as had been the case near Ungava, the men had to haul on the traces with the dogs.

The new drivers were much younger men than Akonuk and Matuk and they were in many respects more companionable. But Bob missed a sort of fatherly interest that the others had shown in him and did not rely so implicitly upon their judgment.

Able now as he was to understand very much of their conversation, he took part in the discussion of various routes and expressed his opinion as to them; and the Eskimos, who at first had looked upon him as a more or less inexperienced kablunok, soon began to feel that he knew nearly as much about dog and komatik travelling as they did themselves. Thus a sort of good fellowship developed at once.

One evening after a hard day's travelling as they came over the crest of a hill the first grove of trees that Bob had seen since shortly after leaving Ungava came in sight. It was the most welcome thing that had met his view in weeks, and when the dogs were turned to its edge and he saw a small shack, he knew that he was nearing again the white man's country.

The shack was found to have no occupants, but it contained a sheet iron stove such as he had used in his tilts, and that night he revelled in the warmth of a fire and a feast of boiled ptarmigan and tea.

"'Tis like gettin' back t' th' Bay," said Bob, and he asked the Eskimos, "Will there be igloosoaks (shacks) all the way?"

"Igloosoaks every night," answered Aluktook.

The following morning a westerly breeze was blowing and the Eskimos were uncertain whether to keep to the land or follow the sea ice along the sh.o.r.e. The former route, they explained to Bob, pa.s.sed over high hills and was much the harder and longer one of the two, but safer.

The ice route along the sh.o.r.e was smooth and could be accomplished much more quickly, but at this season of the year was fraught with more or less danger. For many miles the sh.o.r.e rose in precipitous rocks, and should a westerly gale arise while they were pa.s.sing this point, the ice was likely to break away and no escape could be made to the sh.o.r.e. The wind blowing then from the West was not strong enough yet, they said, to cause any trouble, and they did not think it would rise, but still it was uncertain.

"Which way should they go?"

Bob's experience at Kangeva made him hesitate for a moment, but his impatience to reach home quickly got the better of his judgment; and, especially as the Eskimos seemed inclined to prefer the outside route, he joined them in their preference and answered,

"We'll be goin' outside."

And the outside route they took.

All went well for a time, but hourly the wind increased. The dogs were urged on, but the wind kept blowing them to leeward and they began to show signs of giving out. Finally a veritable gale was blowing and the Eskimos' faces grew serious.

They were now opposite that part of the sh.o.r.e where it rose a perpendicular wall of rock towering a hundred feet above the sea, and offered no place of refuge. So they hurried on as best they could in the hope of rounding the walls and making land before the inevitable break came. Presently Aluktook shouted,

"Emuk! Emuk!"--the water! the water!

Bob and Netseksoak looked, and a ribbon of black water lay between them and the sh.o.r.e.