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I gave them provisions for a week, added a boiling of beans, and finally the wonderful paper in which I stated the days they had worked for me, and the kind of service they had rendered, commended Freesay, and told the truth about Beaulieu. "Dat paper tell about me," said that worthy suspiciously. "Yes," I said, "and about the others; and it tells Harding to pay you as agreed."
They came jumping aboard as fast as they could. We attacked the floe, each with a lodge-pole; that is, Billy and Preble did in the bow, while Freesay and I did at the rear; and in thirty-five minutes we had pushed through and were sailing the open sea. The next day we had the same scene repeated with less intensity, in this case because Freesay sided with me.
We all shook hands and parted. I have not seen them since, nor do I wish to meet any of them again, except Freesay. My advice to the next traveller would be: get white men for the trip and one Indian for guide. When alone they are manageable, and some of them, as seen already, are quite satisfactory, but the more of them the worse.
I found an unexpected difficulty in writing them down, viz.: no matter how I pronounced them, old Weeso and Freesay, my informants, would say, "Yes, that is right." This, I learned, was out of politeness; no matter how you mispronounce their words it is good form to say, "That's it; now you have it exactly."
The headwind died away as they came to the boat and again we resumed the weary rowing, a labour which all were supposed to share, but it did not need an expert to see that Beaulieu, Snuff, and Terchon merely dipped their oars and let them drift a while; the real rowing of that cumbrous old failure of a sailboat was done by Billy Loutit and Yum Freesay."
Freesay recognised it as his and went ashore with a club. We heard the dog yelping. Freesay came back saying: 'He'll go home now. "At 1.30 went on but stopped an unnecessary half-hour at a saw-mill getting plank for seats.
One afternoon he did something that made a final wreck of my confidence. A thunderstorm was rumbling in the far east. Black clouds began travelling toward us; with a line of dark and troubled waters below, the faint breeze changed around and became a squall. Weeso looked scared and beckoned to Freesay, who came and took the helm. Nothing happened.
Freesay had said little or nothing, and had always worked well and cheerfully. Weeso was old and weak, Freesay young and strong, and therefore he was the one for our canoe. I decided it would pay to subsidise Weeso to resign in favour of the younger man. But, to be sure, first asked Freesay if he would like to come with me to the land of the Musk-ox.
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