Page:A Wild-Goose Chase - Balmer - 1915.djvu/291

Rh dogs in good shape and travelling fast. The dogs here must have winded them after Latham shot the Eskimo, and they ran on this way. So he came after them. Then he fell and they came here."

"But"—Geoff stared down at the snow, weak and trembling as he thought of the possibility of relief coming from these sledges of men, strong and travelling fast—"what do these mean?"

"We can't tell yet; but we can soon find out. We've got enough in us to catch them, Geoff! We must! They can't have gone far and we can catch them when they camp. Come! Come on!"

About the Eskimo snow huts on the ice of the long bay the hunt for seals seemed going on that day as usual. Three of the Eskimo spearmen were missing from the blocks of snow where they had sat at watch for the seals; and three of the whites who also had sentineled the animal's breathing holes were gone.

The speamenspearmen [sic] still at their work looked up often over the sea ice to the south and along the snow-covered shores; and the women came