Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 2.djvu/238

Rh den and approach me. Here it played "catch-me-if-you-can," coming just without my reach, and dodging back into its lair. After fifteen minutes' coaxing the dog was tempted to hold out its paw, but as often as I attempted to meet it with mine it was tormentingly withdrawn. The paw was finally fast within my hold, and quickly I had the dog in harness, dragging him after me, and of course his companion followed after. When back to the vessel I was covered with perspiration, though the thermometer was 62° below the freezing point. "At fifteen minutes past 10 Ebierbing and I started, with little expectation of being back to-night. We took along the pair of snow-shoes of Ebierbing's (of Esquimaux style and make), to be used alternately by each of us if the occasion required it, and added to our traps a snow-knife, with which to make us a snow-house on the way, if we needed it.

"The team of dogs was an excellent one, tractable, strong, and of great speed wherever and whenever the travelling would admit of it. The number was not what we could wish, being only seven, but it was as great as we could have. Had my four 'Greenlanders' been here, their help would have been ample for almost any emergency.

"The leader of Ebierbing's team proved to be of no ordinary quality. Though, for much of the way to the point where I was obliged to turn back on Friday last in order to save my remaining companion (Lamb), the tracks we had made were obliterated, yet this leader, with admirable instinct, kept us in the desired course. We had not proceeded far from the vessel before I found, to my joy, that the travelling had greatly improved since Friday. The snow, in many places, had become firmly packed—much of the way sufficiently firm to hold up the dogs and the broad shoe of the sledge, with both Ebierbing and me on it. "We had other work than travelling to do. We worked desperately to keep our faces and feet from freezing. The wind was blowing a smart breeze all the way up the bay, directly from ahead, at a temperature of 62° below the freezing