Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 1.djvu/276

Rh while Captain B and Johnston awaited our determination of the course John had finally taken. John, we found, had endeavoured to mount the shore, but the high, perpendicular walls of ice thrown up by the ever-changing tide would not admit of his accomplishing the undertaking.

"From behind these ice barriers the edges of sombre rocks peered through. Johnston was deceived thereby at one particular spot, and exclaimed, 'There he is! There! do you see?' pointing excitedly to the point indicated. For a few moments all eyes were strained; but sighting showed that John's tracks led easterly, and then south, around the spit of land, on the ice. Again we followed on for half a mile, when we were led into a cove that was terminated by a high rock bluff. Here the ice became rough. Captain B and myself were on the sledge, while Charley and Johnston kept directly upon the track. From the bottom or extreme line of the cove that made up to the base of the indicated bluff sprung out another spit, which swept around a little way to the south, its southern side being limited by the channel through which we passed last fall with the Rescue, up into the bay, where we made anchorage while we visited Frobisher Bay. As the tracks of the lost led up into this recess, Captain B and myself thought that John had made his way up into it for the purpose of passing directly across the neck of the peninsula instead of going around it.

"Charley and Johnston thought it best to continue on his track, while Captain B and myself concluded to pass on with the dogs and kummitie till we should reach the place where John would probably make the ice on the other side. The distance around, we thought, could be but trifling. Before we had passed out of sight of the track followers, we heard the loud but mournful toned voice of the Innuit Charley. We checked the dogs, turned them back, and thence followed up. Our eyes were watching intensely each movement, each step