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Updated: July 15, 2025
Alf deigned no reply, and Butterface laughed, while he and the others set about executing the Captain's orders. The arrangements made in these india-rubber boats for bad weather were very simple and complete.
Anders, the southern Eskimo, made himself generally agreeable, and Butterface became a prime favourite, chiefly because of his inexhaustible fund of fun and good humour, coupled with his fine musical qualities. As, at Benjy's suggestion, he sometimes changed his moods abruptly, the tears often mingled with the convulsions, so as to produce some vivid illustrations of Eskimo hysteria.
Evidently Butterface shared his hopes, for he showed the whites of his eyes and grinned amazingly as he clenched his horny hands. "Yes our enemies," said Amalatok. "The advanced guard of the host," said the Captain, heartily; "come, the sooner we get ready for self-defence the better."
"Stop! stop! man, don't begin when we're in the middle of our plans," interrupted Benjy, "let us hear what book Butterface means to take." "I not take no book, massa, only take my flute. Music is wot's de matter wid me. Dat is de ting what hab charms to soove de savage beast." "I wouldn't advise you try to soothe a Polar bear with it," said Leo, "unless you have a rifle handy."
"Yes, Massa Benjy, bery too much altogidder," said Butterface, echoing the sigh. "Come, we won't cut through this," cried Captain Vane in a cheery voice; "we'll try to go over it. There is a considerable drift of old snow that seems to offer a sort of track. What says Chingatok?" The easy-going Eskimo said that it would be as well to go over it as through it, perhaps better!
"You know that capes have a queer way of sticking out suddenly from land, just as men's noses stick out from their faces." "True, Benjy, true, but your simile is not perfect, for men's noses don't always stick out from their faces witness the nose of Butterface, which, you know, is well aft of his lips and chin. However, this may be Greenland's nose who knows? We shall go and find out ere long.
"Don' know, Burrerface saw 'im las' ." Benjy dropped off with a sigh, but was re-aroused by a rough shake from his father, who lay close to him. "Come, Ben, stir up Butterface! We must go look for Alf." Butterface lay on the other side of Benjy, who, only half alive to what he was doing, raised his hand and let it fall heavily on the negro's nose, by way of stirring him up.
"Deeply learned!" echoed Alf with a laugh, "why, I have only a smattering of them. Just knowledge enough to enable me in some small degree to appreciate the vast amount of knowledge which I have yet to acquire. Why do you look perplexed, Butterface?" "'Cause, massa, you's too deep for me altogidder. My brain no big 'nough to hold it all."
Meanwhile the white men took to rambling; Leo to shoot wild-fowl for supper, Alf to search for "specimens," and Benjy to scramble among the rocks in search of anything that might "turn up." Butterface assisted the latter in his explorations.
"No doubt," said Captain Vane, who, with Benjy, Alf, and Butterface, was close to the Poloe chief in one of the india-rubber boats, "no doubt my young countryman, having sent a message, expected us. Surely eh! Benjy, is not that Leo standing in front of the rest with another man?" The Captain applied his binocular telescope to his eyes as he spoke.
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