Page:Hugh Pendexter--Tiberius Smith.djvu/53

 by the waters of Davis Strait I was so crammed full of Arctic lore that I had to step softly so as not to jolt any vital facts out of my system. That was Tib's way; he never went into a strange place but what he was loaded.

"At Ivigtut we presented our credentials to the agents, who sent us on to Godthaab, the capital of Danish South Greenland. Here we were shaken down for newspapers and any information that didn't date back beyond the Stone Age. But, on the whole, we were handsomely treated by those holding the reins of government over this gigantic cold-storage plant; and we quickly learned that the captain's yarn about the strange people was within the truth zone, and that some of them had spent the long winter months on the coast. Now they had retreated up the fiords into the interior, we were told, where in sheltered places the mosses and flowering plants have the nerve to come forth in the stingy sunshine. Best of all, we were supplied with some faithful Eskimos, one of whom could do rough out-of-door work on the English language.

"The course we took largely evaded the ice and snow, yet we carried along a light sledge and a bunch of dogs. The Greenland canine is the best sledge animal in the world, and as ours were a cross between the native pup and the majestic Dane, we felt quite proud of our outfit. The west