Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 2.djvu/237

218 busy bagging blankets, pemmican, oil, &c.—the same articles I provided myself with on Friday last, with the object of making the woman comfortable before starting to bring her back. On getting the dogs together, Ebierbing found two missing. As it was essential to have a full team, we spared no exertions to find them. After searching all around the ship and the boats which are out on the ice, and not finding them, Ebierbing indicated that they might be over on the island at the deserted snow-houses of the Innuits. The two harnesses in hand, I offered to go and make a trial in getting them. I directed my steps to that part of the island where the abandoned igloos of Ebierbing and Koodloo are. "Arriving there after severe struggling through the deep snow, I found dog-tracks leading to the openings into the two igloos, the said openings being through the dome, where the seal-entrail windows had been. Looking down through these openings, and searching around, I could see nothing of the dogs. I then made my way laboriously along, over to the village proper, on the farther side of Fresh-water Pond, and was unsuccessful here also. As I was making my return, I determined to visit again the igloos where I had first searched for the dogs, and on turning to them I saw one of the animals in the distance. On calling to him the other soon made its appearance; but, as I was a stranger to them, I had a difficulty in capturing them. They broke past me and ran into the broken-down passage-way leading into Ebierbing's deserted igloo. The drift, as well as the falling in of the dome, had so completely shut up this passage that I was a long time in enlarging the fox-hole sufficiently to admit my contracted size. By perseverance I kicked a way before me, being prostrate, and pushing along feet foremost; but on getting the length of the passage leading to the main igloo, and making a turn so that I could not look ahead, my dilemma was far from enviable, for there the dogs were, beyond a possibility of my reaching them, the dome of the igloo having stooped, as it were, to kiss its foundation. By using dog-persuasive talk, I at length induced one of them to come out of the