Nazinred’s Journey over the Arctic Sea.

While our Indian travelled through the woods he and his dogs were on familiar ground. He encamped at night in the way to which he had been accustomed all his life. That is to say, he selected a spot under a spreading fir-tree, dug away the snow until he got to the ground, which he covered with a carpet of pine branches. At one end of this encampment—or hole in the snow of ten feet or so in diameter—he made a huge fire of dead logs. At the other end he spread his blanket, unpacked his sledge, fed his dogs with some willow-grouse provided for the purpose, warmed up his pemmican and dried meat, melted some snow for drink, and spent the night in comparative comfort. And it is wonderful, reader, how cosy such an encampment in the snow is, when food is plentiful and health strong.

But when our Indian quitted the shore, and began his daring journey on the Arctic Sea, he was surrounded by new and unfamiliar conditions. No trees were to be had for firewood, no branches for bedding, no overhanging pines for shelter. He had gone there, however, prepared for the change.

The sea near the shore had been set fast when in a comparatively smooth condition, so that, the first day’s march over, it was easy. As he had expected, the surface of the snow had been drifted quite hard, so that he could dispense with snow-shoes altogether, and the four dogs found the sledge so light that they felt disposed now and then to run away with it; but Nazinred checked this propensity by holding on to the tail-line, thus acting as a drag. Ere long the shore was left out of sight behind, and the first of the islets—a small group—also passed and left behind.

When night was well advanced the Indian found himself on the ice of the open sea with nothing but hummocks and bergs to shelter him. Being acquainted, by hearsay at least, with some of the methods of the Eskimos, he avoided the bergs, for there was the danger of masses falling from their sides and from overhanging ice-cliffs, and selected a small hummock—a heap of masses that had been thrown or crushed up earlier in the winter, covered with snow, and formed into a solid mound. The light air that blew over the frozen plain was scarcely worth taking into account, nevertheless the Indian chose the lee side of the hummock and then began to try his “prentice hand” at the erection of a snow-hut.

Nazinred had indeed some doubts as to the value of such a cold habitation without fire, but he knew that Eskimos sometimes used such, and what they could do he could dare. Besides, love is strong as death—and he meant to find Adolay or die!

His hut, as might have been expected, was not such as an Eskimo architect would have praised, but it was passable for a first attempt. He knew that the northern masons built their winter dwellings in the form of a dome, therefore he essayed the same form; but it fell in more than once before the keystone of the arch was fixed.

“Never mind,” thought Nazinred; “they have done it—I can do it.”

Nothing is impossible to men of this stamp. He persevered, and succeeded after a couple of hours in producing a sort of misshapen bee-hive about six feet in diameter, and four feet high. The slabs of snow of which it was composed were compact and solid, though easily cut with his scalping-knife, and formed bricks that could resist the influence of the fiercest gale. At one side of the hut he cut a hole for a doorway, and reserved the piece cut out for a door. It was just big enough to let his broad shoulders pass through, and when he got inside and lay down at length to test it, he gave a slight “humph!” of satisfaction. Not that the chamber was cheerful—far from it, for it was intensely dark,—but our Indian was a practical man. He did not require light to enable him to sleep or rest.

While engaged in constructing the hut, he observed that the four dogs were sitting on their tails doing nothing except gazing in curiosity, if not surprise, at his unwonted proceedings. Being a busy man, he naturally disliked idlers, and therefore unlashed some food from his sledge and served out their supper by way of giving them something to do. They ceased idling at once, but after supper sat down on their tails again to watch as before, though in a more languid frame of mind.

When the hut was finished he sat down outside, the night being clear and comparatively warm, or rather, we should say, not bitterly cold. During the meal he kept up the interest of the dogs to a keenly hopeful point by occasionally tossing a morsel to each. When the meal was over, and they knew from long experience that nothing more was to be hoped for, they curled themselves up in the lee of the hut, and, with a glorious disregard of bedding and all earthly things, went to sleep.

It was found rather difficult to get the sledge into the hut, as Nazinred had forgotten to make allowance for its size, but by enlarging the door and manoeuvring, the difficulty was overcome—a matter of considerable importance, for there was no knowing what Arctic monsters might take a fancy to play havoc with its contents while its owner slept.

Then the Indian spread a large deerskin with the hair on over the floor of his hut, and was about to spread his blankets above that, when he remembered that he would want water to drink in the morning—for it is well-known that eating snow during the intense cold of Arctic winters is very hurtful. He had provided for this by taking a bladder with him, which he meant to fill with snow each night and take it to bed with him, so that his animal heat—and he had plenty of that—might melt some of it before morning. He was then on the point of closing up the doorway when it occurred to him that if the dogs were inside they might make the place warmer, but upon reflection he feared that they might also make it suffocating—for the dogs were large and the hut was small. After pondering the subject for a few minutes, he decided to take only one of them inside.

“Attim, come,” he said quietly, as if speaking to a human friend.

Attim, without any remark save a wag of his tail, arose promptly, entered the hut, and lay down. You see, he was accustomed to little attentions of the sort.

At last, everything being completed, Nazinred closed the door, plastered it well with snow round the seams, so as to render the place air-tight, wrapped himself in his blankets, took the bladder of snow to his bosom, laid his wearied head on one of his bundles, and prepared to slumber.

But ere he reached the land of forgetfulness an idea struck him, which, Indian though he was, caused him to smile even in the dark.

“Attim,” he murmured.

“Here you are,” replied Attim’s tail with a flop that was quite as expressive as the tongue—and softer.

“You take charge of that,” said the sly man, transferring the bladder of snow from his own bosom to that of the dog; “you have more heat than I have.”

Whether the Indian was right in this belief we cannot say, but the humble-minded dog received the charge as a special favour, and with an emphatic “I will” from its ever-sensitive tail again lay down to repose.

Thereafter the two went to sleep, and spent six or seven hours of unbroken rest, awaking simultaneously and suddenly to find that the dogs outside were also awake and wishing to get in. Indeed, one of them had already scraped a hole in the wall that would soon have admitted him had not his master given him a tap on the nose with the butt of his gun.

Of course it was still dark, for the morning was not far advanced, but the star-light and the aurora were quite sufficient to enable them to see their way, as they set out once more on their lonesome journey.

Breakfast was a meal of which Nazinred made no account. Supper was his chief stand-by, on the strength of which he and his dogs slept, and also travelled during the following day. Soon after they had awakened, ther............