THE BIGGEST GAME IN THE ARCTIC
We slept splendidly on that banquet, and, breaking out early the next
morning, we passed up the ice of Porter Bay to its head, then, taking to
the land, crossed the five-mile-wide isthmus which separates Porter Bay
from the head of James Ross Bay. Every foot of this route was familiar
to me and rich with memories. Reaching the other side, we descended to
the ice again and made rapid progress along the western shore. The dogs
were lively and well-fed, trotting along with tails and ears erect; the
weather was good, and the sun, now low on the horizon, cast long,
fantastic shadows on the ice from every man and dog.
Suddenly the quick eyes of Egingwah spied a moving speck on the slope of
the mountain to our left. "_Tooktoo_," he cried, and the party came to
an instant standstill. Knowing that the successful pursuit of a single
buck reindeer might mean a long run, I made no attempt to go after him
myself; but I told Egingwah and Ooblooyah, my two stalwart, long-legged
youngsters, to take the 40-82 Winchesters and be off. At the word they
were flying across country, eager as dogs loosed from the traces,
crouching low and running quickly. They took a course which would
intercept the deer a little farther along the slope of the mountain.
I watched them through my glasses. The deer, when he caught sight of
them, started off leisurely in another direction, looking back every now
and then, suspiciously alert. When the deer halted suddenly and swung
round facing them, it was clear that they had given the magic call
taught by Eskimo father to Eskimo son through generation after
generation, the imitation call at which every buck reindeer stops
instantly--a peculiar hissing call like the spitting of a cat, only more
lingering.
The two men leveled their rifles, and the magnificent buck went down in
his tracks. The dogs had been watching, with heads and ears erect; but
at the report of the rifles they swung sharply to the shore, and the
next instant we were hurrying across the rocks and over the snow, the
dogs dragging the sledges as if they had been empty.
When we reached the two hunters they were standing patiently beside the
deer. I had told them not to disturb him, as some good photographs were
desired. He was a beautiful creature, almost snow-white, with
magnificent branching antlers. When the photographs were taken, all four
of the men set to work, skinning and cutting him up.
[Illustration: FAMILY GROUP OF PEARY CARIBOU (RANGIFER PEARYI), ARRANGED
BY "FROZEN TAXIDERMY" AND PHOTOGRAPHED BY FLASHLIGHT]
The scene is vivid in memory: the towering mountains on both sides of
James Ross Bay, with the snow-covered foreshore stretching down to the
white surface of the bay; in the south the low-lying sun, a great glare
of vivid yellow just showing through the gap of the divide, the air full
of slowly dropping frost crystals; and the four fur-clad figures grouped
around the deer, with the dogs and the sledges at a little
distance--the only signs of life in that great white wilderness.
When the deer was skinned and dressed, the pelt was carefully rolled and
put on one of the sledges, the meat was made into a pile for
Wesharkoopsi to take back to the ship when he returned from Sail Harbor
with empty sledge, and we pushed along the western shore of the bay;
then, taking to the land again, still westward across this second
peninsula and low divide, till we came to the little bight, called Sail
Harbor by the English, on the western side of Parry Peninsula.
Here, out at the mouth of the harbor, under the lee of the protecting
northern point, we made our second camp.
Wesharkoopsi deposited his load of supplies, and I wrote a note for
Bartlett, who was west of us on his way to Cape Columbia. That night we
had deer steak for supper--a feast for a king.
After a few hours' sleep we started, straight as the crow flies, across
the eastern end of the great glacial fringe, heading for the mouth of
Clements Markham Inlet. Reaching the mouth of the inlet, we kept on down
its eastern shore, finding very good going; for the tides rising in the
crack next the shore had saturated the overlying snow, then freezing had
formed a narrow but smooth surface for the sledges.
A part of this shore was musk-ox country, and we scanned it carefully,
but saw none of the animals. Some miles down the bay we came upon the
tracks of a couple of deer. A little farther on we were electrified by
a tense whisper from the ever sharp-sighted Egingwah:
"_Nanooksoah!_"
He was pointing excitedly toward the center of the fiord, and following
the direction of his finger we saw a cream-colored spot leisurely moving
toward the mouth of the fiord--a polar bear!
If there is anything that starts the blood lust in an Eskimo's heart
more wildly than the sight of a polar bear, I have yet to discover it.
Hardened as I am to arctic hunting, I was thrilled myself.
[Illustration: POLAR BEAR, ARRANGED BY "FROZEN TAXIDERMY" AND
PHOTOGRAPHED BY FLASHLIGHT]
While I stood in front of the dogs with a whip in each hand, to keep
them from dashing away--for the Eskimo dog knows the meaning of
"_nanooksoah_" as well as his master--the three men were throwing things
off the sledges as if they were crazy.
When the sledges were empty, Ooblooyah's team shot by me, with Ooblooyah
at the up-standers. Egingwah came next, and I threw myself on his sledge
as it flew past. Behind us came Koolatoonah with the third team. The man
who coined the phrase "greased lightning" must have ridden on an empty
sledge behind a team of Eskimo dogs on the scent of a polar bear.
The bear had heard us, and was making for the opposite shore of the
fiord with prodigious bounds. I jumped to the up-standers of the flying
sledge, leaving Egingwah to throw himself on it and get his breath, and
away we went, wild with excitement, across the snow-covered surface of
the fiord.
When we got to the middle the snow was deeper, and the dogs could not go
so fast, though they strained ahead with all their might. Suddenly they
scented the trail--and then neither deep snow nor anything else could
have held them. Ooblooyah, with a crazy team and only himself at the
up-standers, distanced the rest of us, arriving at the farther shore
almost as soon as the leaping bear. He loosed his dogs immediately, and
we could see the bear in the distance, followed by minute dots that
looked hardly larger than mosquitoes swarming up the steep slope. Before
our slower teams got to the shore, Ooblooyah had reached the top of the
slope, and he signaled us to go around, as the land was an island.
When we reached the other side, we found where the bear had descended to
the ice again and kept on across the remaining width of the fiord to the
western shore, followed by Ooblooyah and his dogs.
A most peculiar circumstance, commented on by Egingwah as we flew along,
was that this bear, contrary to the custom of bears in Eskimo land, did
not stop when the dogs reached him, but kept right on traveling. This to
Egingwah was almost certain proof that the great devil himself--terrible
Tornarsuk--was in that bear. At the thought of chasing the devil, my
sledge companion grew even more excited.
On the other side of the island the snow was deeper and our progress
slower, and when we reached the western shore of the fiord, up which, as
on the island, we had seen from a distance the bear and Ooblooyah's dogs
slowly climbing, both we and our dogs were pretty well winded. But we
were encouraged by hearing the barking of the free dogs up somewhere
among the cliffs. This meant that the bear had at last been brought to
bay. When we reached the shore our dogs were loosed from the sledges.
They swarmed up the hot trail, and we followed as best we could.
A little farther on we came to a deep cañon, and as we could tell by the
sounds, the dogs and the bear were at the bottom. But where we stood the
walls were too precipitous for even an Eskimo to descend, and we could
not see our quarry. He was evidently under some projecting ledge on our
side.
Moving up the cañon to find a place of descent, I heard Egingwah shout
that the bear had started down the cañon and was climbing up the other
side. Hurrying back through the deep snow and over the rough rocks, I
suddenly saw the beast, perhaps a hundred yards away, and raised my
rifle. But I must have been too much winded to take good aim, for though
I fired two shots at him the bear kept right on up the cañon side.
Surely Tornarsuk was in him!
I found that I had given the stumps of both my feet--my toes were frozen
off at Fort Conger in 1899--some severe blows against the rocks; and as
they were complaining with vehemence, I decided not to follow the bear
any farther along the steep boulder-strewn bluffs.
Handing my rifle to Egingwah, I told him and Koolatoonah to go after the
bear while I went back down the bluffs to the sledges and followed along
the bay ice. But before I had gone far along the bay ice shouting was
heard in the distance, and soon an Eskimo appeared on a summit and waved
his hand--a signal that they had bagged the bear.
Just ahead, and abreast of where the Eskimo had appeared, was the mouth
of a ravine, and I stopped the sledge there and waited. In a little
while my men appeared slowly working their way down the ravine. The dogs
which had been in at the death were attached to the bear, as if he had
been a sledge, and they were dragging him after them. It was an
interesting scene: the steep and rocky ravine in its torn mantle of
snow, the excited dogs straining ahead with their unusual burden, the
inert cream-colored, blood-streaked form of the great bear, and the
shouting and gesticulating Eskimos.
When they finally got the bear down to the shore, and while I was taking
photographs of him, the Eskimos walked up and down excitedly discussing
the now certain fact that the devil had been in this animal, or he never
would have traveled as he did after the dogs overtook him. The
subtleties of arctic demonology being beyond the grasp of any mere white
man, I did not join in the argument as to whither the devil had betaken
himself when the rifle of Ooblooyah laid low his fleshly tenement.
Our prize was soon skinned and cut up by the skilful knives of the
Eskimos, the meat was piled on the shore for future parties to bring
back to the ship, the bearskin was carefully folded on one of the
sledges, and we returned to the place where we had first seen the bear,
on the other side of the bay.
There we found the supplies which had been thrown from the sledges to
lighten them for the bear chase; and as the men and dogs were tired out,
and we were satisfied with the day's work, we camped on the spot. Our
tent was unfolded and set up, the oil-stoves were lighted, and we had a
plentiful supply of bear steak--all the juicier, perhaps, for the recent
presence of Tornarsuk.