Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 1.djvu/274

Rh tracks of the three would lead to ours, whence we could be traced.

"Fifteen minutes after 4 the tracks of John turned south. Johnston had said he would continue with me till we should reach the coast on the west side of Field Bay, if John's track should continue there. Now they turned from the vessel south. Here, for the first time, I solicited him to go with me as far as a point of land toward which we were headed. He acquiesced. Passing two miles south, a magnificent mountain of ice—an iceberg—stood a little way to the left. As we came in line with it—the berg bearing east—we found the footprints of John Brown squarely turned toward it. At any other time, how I should have enjoyed the sight before me—a pile of alabaster, pinnacled as no human mind could design or human art execute—here and there a covering of cream colour, the side facing the descending sun reflecting dazzling prismatic colours. To this, in the darkness of night, John had directed his steps. As we arrived at its base, we found that this berg was evidently grounded, the ice between it and the sea-ice being in fragments, from the rise and fall of the tides. We feared we might find that poor John had lost his life about this berg, for his tracks showed that he had ventured where no man by daylight would dare to put his foot. One place gave palpable evidence where he had followed around to the south side and there fallen in. But from this he had extricated himself, and continued around to the east side, where he again ventured. From appearances, I thought John in search of some place where he could be protected from the wind and cold, where he could sleep. He passed across the dangerous broken ice floating amid sea water on to a tongue of the berg. He walked along a little cove that was roofed by overhanging ice; he finds no safe place there. But where are his outward steps? For a while we thought it certain that John was either in some of the recesses of this vast berg, or had made a false step, and gone down into the deep. Passing northerly, I finally descried returning tracks. He had made a fearful, desperate leap from a shelving alcove