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Of course Oolichuk was decidedly in favour of joining the white men, and so was Ivitchuk, who soon brought round his hesitating friend Akeetolik, and several of the others. Oblooria, being timid, would gladly have sided with Eemerk, but she hated the man, and, besides, would in any case have cast in her lot with her mother and brother, even if free to do otherwise.
A few days after that, Captain Vane and his Eskimo allies, having left the camp with Eemerk and his friends far behind them, came suddenly one fine morning on a barrier which threatened effectually to arrest their further progress northward. This was nothing less than that tremendous sea of "ancient ice" which had baffled previous navigators and sledging parties.
The Eskimos reached their sledges, harnessed their teams, left their spears on the ice, cracked their whips, which caused the dogs to join in the yelling chorus, and made for the land at a furious gallop. But their fear began to evaporate in a few minutes, and Oolichuk was the first to check his pace. "Ho! stop," he cried. Eemerk looked back, saw that they were not pursued, and pulled up.
"No, it is only a dead thing. It is a wooden house." "You lie!" cried the polite Eemerk, "it shakes its wings. It vomits fire and smoke. It has a tail, and wags it." While speaking he slowly retreated, for the plank was being placed in position, and the other natives were showing symptoms of an intention to fly. Just then a shout was heard landwards.
Meanwhile the yacht drew near to the floe on which our Eskimos were grouped. The ice was cracked right across, leaving a lane of open water about ten feet wide between its inner edge and the shore ice. The Eskimos stood on the land side of this crack, a hundred yards or so from it. On nearing the floe the strange vessel checked her speed. "It moves its wings!" exclaimed Eemerk.
"No no one would kill you," said Eemerk gallantly; "they would only carry you off and keep you." While they conversed with eager, anxious looks, the steam yacht for such she was advanced rapidly, threading her way among the ice-fields and floes with graceful rapidity and ease, to the unutterable amazement of the natives.
"That may be so," retorted Akeetolik, "but if you and me had not been there, the bear would not make a mistake." "I will not go with these Kablunets," said Eemerk with a frown, "they are only savages. They are not taught. No doubt they had a wonderful boat, but they have not been able to keep their boat.
Eemerk had volunteered to go, not as second in command, but as an independent member of the party a sort of free-lance. Chingatok did not quite relish having Eemerk for a companion, but, being a good-humoured, easy-going fellow, he made no objection to his going. Eemerk took his wife with him. Chingatok took his mother and little sister; also a young woman named Tekkona, who was his wife's sister.
Eemerk fairly turned and fled to the stern of the yacht, over which he would certainly have plunged had he not been forcibly restrained by two stout seamen. The others, trembling violently, stood still, because they knew not what to do, and poor Oblooria fell flat on the deck, catching Tekkona by the tail, and pulling her down beside her.
In another instant the whistle shrieked, and the escape-valve hissed ten times more furiously than before. Up went the Eskimo three feet or more as if in convulsions, and away went Eemerk to the stern, over which he dived, swam to the floe, leaped on his sledge, cracked his whip, and made for home on the wings of terror. Doubtless an evil conscience helped his cowardice.
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