Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 2.djvu/240

Rh had been. But where were the three igloos that I had visited Thursday, January 30th, a little less than four weeks ago? Not one to be seen! I took my snow-knife from the sledge, and, after my companion had finished his work of whipping down the dogs to a prostrate position, I bade him follow me. "Around and around we walked, searching for the igloos. Sure was I that we were at the point I had struggled to reach. Could it be possible that the deep snow had covered them up? My Innuit friend told me that such was probably the case. No footprints save our own could I discover. Were we travelling heedlessly over the grave of her whom we were fighting to save? This was a question that rushed into my brain. Then the thought came to me, Perhaps she still lives in some tomb beneath our feet. List! list! methought I heard a sound as if muffled! All was as still as a charnel-house. Ebierbing's accustomed eye was not long in discerning a spot that satisfied him that, by cutting down through the snow, it would lead to the doom of an igloo. "Knowing it to be repugnant to his feelings to touch anything belonging to an igloo covering the dead, I spared him all pain on that score by digging down unassisted. A few moments sufficed to satisfy me that Ebierbing had indicated to me the precise spot leading to an igloo, for a few cuts with my snow-knife brought me down to the dome of one, and a few more through it. After cutting a hole of sufficient size to let in light and my head, I knelt down, and, with throbbing heart, surveyed within. The igloo was vacated of everything save a large lump of blubber back upon the dais or platform—the bed-place and seat of the Innuits—and a few bones, the remains of some of the tuktoo that had been killed by the Innuits on the plains. A brief search revealed the apex of another igloo. Through the dome of this I cut a hole, but found the interior still more vacant; not a thing was in it, if I except a drift of snow that completely filled the front of the igloo, closing up the place that had been used as the entrance. This made two igloos that I had searched without finding the object of my sympathy and pursuit. Where was