Page:A Wild-Goose Chase - Balmer - 1915.djvu/229

Rh slung over the man's shoulders, lying on the ice beside him; the man was on his face as he had fallen. He was garbed in skin clothing of the ordinary type of the northern Eskimo; the hood covered the back of his head; his hands were in mittens. A dark blotch of blood, flowing from somewhere under his hood, made a pool on the ice; and he lay very still. Now that the men had come up the dogs stood quieted, watching. The two largest smelled beside the body and sniffed, and looked up and put their noses down and sniffed again. Geoff recognised these two dogs and remembered that they were the two of their teams which had been on the Aurora.

"A man with a gun!" Geoff cried, and with the help of the other two he turned the body over.

The limbs fell dully and the body was all weight, inert. The blood from the wound in the head had already frozen in a dark streak down one side of the face. The blood hid the face above the brow and about the chin; but it was a face that one who had seen it would not forget. The eyes were closed—the good, blue