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But it was not long before the first excitement of going upon a journey wore off, and after their manner the animals, with tails curled over their backs, settled down to a steady pulling. Now and again they came upon a ridge of ice piled up by the tide, and then it was necessary to lift at the komatiks and help the dogs.
Most of it is taken to London by the Moravian mission ship, and has found its way into English and Continental museums. The figures of dogs, of Eskimos themselves, as well as of kyaks and komatiks, seals, walrus, arctic birds and the like are most exquisitely done. The mission itself deserves a brief description.
Along the front of the row of houses were immense shell heaps, from which we dug ivory, that is, walrus teeth; carvings, stone lamps, spear heads, portions of kyaks, whips, komatiks, as the sleds are called, etc., etc., and bones innumerable of all the varieties of birds, fish and game on which the early Eskimo dined; as well as remnants of all the implements which Eskimos used in the household generations ago, and which can nearly all now be recognized by the almost identically shaped and made implements in the houses of Eskimos there in Hopedale, so little do they change in the course of centuries.
And so it came to pass that in the bright moonlight of Monday morning they lashed upon the two komatiks a good supply of hardtack and boiled salt pork the only provisions that would not freeze too hard to eat with tea, and sleeping bags, and numerous articles of equipment for their own use and comfort, and a day's supply of seal meat for the dogs.
For my pan would hold together longer and I should be opposite another village, called Goose Cove, at daylight, and might possibly be seen from there. I knew that the komatiks there would be starting at daybreak over the hills for a parade of Orangemen about twenty miles away. Possibly, therefore, I might be seen as they climbed the hills. So I lay down, and went to sleep again.
Sometimes we encountered ridges on the necks of land, and then we would have to help the dogs haul the loads to the top. Resuming our places on the komatiks, we would coast down the slopes, with the dogs racing madly ahead to keep from being run over.
By an odd freak a sudden snowstorm swept out of a clear sky just after they left. They missed their way, and two days later, starving and tired out, they found their first refuge, a small house many miles from the spot where they had left the sledges. When, however, they sent a relief team to find the komatiks, they discovered the boy still "standing by" his charge.
We stopped the komatiks, and it fell to my lot to go ahead and explore. Finding nothing I called to the driver, and his voice returned out of the fog right ahead of me, and almost in my ear. I had told them not to move or we might miss our way, and I reminded him of that fact. "Haven't budged an inch" came the reply from the darkness. I had been describing a large circle.
Then they flung themselves upon the komatiks, and away they dashed, down the steep and slippery incline, and off through the shore hummocks at a wild, mad gallop. They were away to the sena, and the Great Adventure, at last. For a little way the dogs traveled at a gallop, and Bobby and Skipper Ed had lively work while this lasted, guiding the komatiks between the ice hummocks.
At dawn we were up, and with a bit of jerked venison in my hand to serve for breakfast, I left the others to lash the load on the komatiks and follow me and started on ahead. I had walked but half a mile when I came upon the rough hummocks of the Inlet ice. Before noon we found shelter from the now heavily driving snowstorm in a livyere's hut and here remained until the following morning.
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