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On blizzard days we left them alone, but Atkinson, seeing that the wind had modified in the afternoon, zealously started out over the ice and was absent from dinner. Search parties were sent in various directions, each taking a sledge with sleeping-bags, brandy flask, thermos full of cocoa, and first-aid equipment.
Then the ship was banked up with snow and part of the deck was covered with canvas to keep out the cold. The weather being propitious, Captain Hall thought best to take a sledge journey to find the lay of the country. He ordered the dogs to be well fed, and accompanied by two other sledges advanced northward about fifty miles, making side trips to take observations.
The idea of the Christmas tree pleased Claus, and so the following year he carried many of them in his sledge and set them up in the homes of poor people who seldom saw trees, and placed candles and toys on the branches.
Lloyd, in his "Field Sports in the North of Europe," tells us of a peasant who, in the neighbourhood of St. Petersburgh, met with the following narrow escape: "He was pursued by eleven of these ferocious animals, while he was in his sledge. At this time he was only about two miles from home, towards which he urged his horse at the very top of his speed.
"No, it isn't a threat," answered Denver quietly. "If I wanted to kill you I'd swing this sledge and knock you on the head, right now. No, I don't intend to kill you; but a man would be a sucker to play right into your hands." "What do you mean?" asked Murray trying to argue the matter, but Denver refused to indulge him.
Apparently this was an old bear, confident perhaps in its strength, and used, it might be, to dog-assaults, for it paid no further attention to its canine opponents, but advanced with a very threatening aspect towards the sledge. It is pretty well-known that two Eskimo men of average strength and courage are more than a snatch for the Polar bear, if armed with spears. The mode of attack is simple.
The practice is either to bore through to the water table with a man-operated auger and then insert the pipe, or to drive the latter down with a heavy sledge hammer. In either case, water is but a few feet below ground and a shallow-well pump, which can raise water twenty-two feet by suction, will be adequate.
Winklemann clothed himself in a wolf-skin, to which the ears and part of the head adhered. A small sledge, which may be described as a long thin plank with one end curled up, was brought to him by a hungry-looking squaw. Four dogs were attached to it with miniature harness made to fit them.
He had done his best to conceal matters, with which Angut, he said, had nothing to do; but somehow that wonderfully wise man had seen, as it were, into his brain, and at once became suspicious. Looking back, he saw that Angut had already harnessed the dogs to his sledge, and was packing the Kablunet upon it "All lies," interrupted Arbalik's mother, Issek, at this point.
Three days they journeyed onward over hill and valley without stopping, and the third evening brought them in sight of Ilmarinen's smithy, and they could see the smoke rising from the chimneys of their home. There they found that they had been expected for a long time, and there was great rejoicing when their sledge drove up, with the birds singing merrily on its front, and all bright and happy.
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