Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 2.djvu/266

247 CHAPTER XVI.

the day, April 14th, 1862, I remained quiet in the igloo, engaged in writing and working up observations. On the 15th I made a trip up the east arm of Peter Force Sound; and on the 16th we left the fifth (same as third) encampment, and proceeded on up Frobisher Bay. We made but slow progress on account of sealing, there being a necessity for obtaining all the food that could be found. Six of us, beside the dogs, required a large quantity. After journeying seven miles, we made our next encampment on the ice a few paces from a point of land forming the west cape of a pretty little bay, which, on the boat voyage in the previous fall, I had called Beauty Bay. That night we had a different kind of dwelling from the one ordinarily occupied by us. The weather was now occasionally warm enough to admit of half igloo and half tupic, which was made by omitting the dome, and placing tent-poles, covered with canvass, on the snow walls.

An exciting scene occurred while the igloo wall was being erected. Koojesse and Sharkey were at work on the building, while Henry and I removed everything from the sledge. We being at some little distance, the dogs suddenly sprung in a pack upon the sledge, and each snatched a piece of the meat and blubber still remaining upon it. With a club in my hand, and seal-spear in Henry's, we belaboured them lustily, but they were so hungry that it really seemed as if they