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Big cakes of ice were piled in high barricades along the rivers where we crossed them, and at these places we had to let the komatik down with care on one side and help the dogs haul it up with much labor on the other; and on the level, through the rough ice hummocks or amongst the rocks, the drivers were kept busy steering to prevent collisions with the obstructions, while the dogs rushed madly ahead, and we, on the komatik, clung on for dear life and watched our legs that they might not get crushed.
Toby shouted, at the same time, with feverish haste, endeavouring to loosen his rifle from its lashings upon the komatik, and losing no time in unleashing the dogs. The bear was already fifty yards away when Charley fired. It was not a long shot, but in his excitement he missed, and the report of the rifle did not, apparently, in any manner decrease or accelerate the bear's speed.
Then a fishing net that needed repairs was made ready to lash upon the komatik with the load in the morning, the dogs were fed, and they settled for a cozy evening while they talked over their adventures, and Charley's new rifle. "'Tis the finest shootin' rifle I ever sees," declared Toby, adding wistfully: "I wishes I had one like she. Maybe with the silver fox Dad'll be lettin' me have un."
The picture of this meeting on the ice between Cook and Whitney gave us the impression of another Nansen and Jackson at Spitzbergen. Whitney had welcomed Cook warmly, had witnessed his troubles at Etah, and his departure by komatik, and had taken charge of his instruments and records to carry South with him when he came home.
I sees you knock that un over with the ax. 'Twere wonderful plucky, Charley, to fight un with an ax." Charley sank, weak and trembling, upon the komatik. "I thought they'd kill me," he said. "'Twere lucky I hears un." Toby stooped and felt of the fur of one of those he had shot. "They's prime, and we gets three of un, whatever.
"'Twould be a long walk out to the barrens to tend un, but if we takes the dogs and komatik we'd have good travelin' for un everywhere exceptin' through the short neck of woods." "Let's do!" Charley agreed enthusiastically. "It'll be a lot quicker, and it will give us a fine trip with the dogs every day when we go to look at the traps."
The dogs, too, were large, and more like wolves in appearance than those the Bay folk used, and the komatik was narrower but much longer and heavier than those he was accustomed to. He was surely in a new and strange land. More igloos were seen during the afternoon, but they were passed as the first had been, and at night the party bivouacked in the open as they had done the night before.
At one point they squeezed the brook through a pass only ten feet in width, with perpendicular walls towering high above our heads on either side. This place is known to the Hudson's Bay Company people as "The Porch." In the afternoon Peter caught his foot in a crevice, and the komatik jammed him with such force that he narrowly escaped a broken leg and was crippled for the rest of the journey.
As I have already mentioned, no one lives around this big bay. My only hope was that the other komatik, knowing I was alone and had failed to keep my tryst, would perhaps come back to look for me. This, however, as it proved, they did not do. The westerly wind was rising all the time, our coldest wind at this time of the year, coming as it does over the Gulf ice.
The dogs, with traces taut, stood above him bracing themselves to hold the sledge from slipping farther. "Oh!" cried Charley running down to Toby, who was up and righting the komatik before he could reach him, "I was sure we were going over!" "We were wonderful close to un!" said Toby.
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