_Homeward Bound_
All very well to talk so lightly about going to Cape Bexley; when it
really came to the point, leaving meant taking leave and this was a bad
business. Kak’s heart broke, for his friend, Omialik, stayed behind. It
was the white man’s intention to return down Horton River to Franklin
Bay and go from there to Banks Island--a long and dangerous journey
into the unknown. The boy burned to accompany him.
“Later on, later on, when your legs are a bit longer for walking,” the
explorer promised.
Kak tried to smile, tried not to show the hollow feeling this
separation planted in the pit of his stomach; but it took moral force.
He gulped.
“Brace up, old chap.” The Kabluna patted his shoulder. “I’m coming
back, you know. You will see me in Victorialand again--unless by then
you have gone to Herschel Island to learn to shoot.”
Talking about impossible dreams as if they were bound to happen makes
them seem jolly real. Kak managed to choke back his sorrow, and
freshly convinced that life was a grand adventure, ran after the party
who were already trekking north.
Crossing the prairies with all their gear and trade goods, the wooden
dishes, pails, lamp supports they had made, and pieces of rough wood
piled on the sled, proved an entirely different experience from their
tiresome, hot, hungry tramp southward. The new sled ran lightly on snow
ample to cover the ground and not too heavy for walking. Taptuna was
careful to pack a good supply of food, and halfway across the tundra
they found their old cache. All laughed heartily to think how much
worse they had needed it in the summer than they did now.
With favorable weather and little time lost hunting they made a record
trip. Spirits mounted at every mile. Guninana sniffed the ocean air
joyfully and said how fine it would be to live in a comfortable snow
house, away from buzzing flies and boiling hot sun, and that perpetual
sense of work always awaiting them in the woods.
Frost made Kak feel like a war horse. He longed to have the flat ice
under his feet again, with two dogs, perhaps three if he was lucky,
harnessed to the sleigh, and run--run--run--abandoning himself to that
glorious sense of space and motion which was his heritage.
The first person he hunted up at the cape was Kommana.
“Got that pup for me?” he shouted.
“Got that snow shovel?”
“Sure thing!”
Kak proudly produced their wonderful slab of spruce, and when everybody
about had admired and praised it he was offered his choice of the
six-months-old dogs.
The boys’ fathers were party to this trade, for a single piece of
wood the width of the one they had brought was considered very
valuable--worth almost as much as Taptuna’s new sled.
This was a large village, many Eskimos from the north and east had come
to trade, and things took on the character if not the appearance of one
of our small-town fairs. Besides their business the traders indulged in
sports, jumping and racing and playing football. Their balls are made
of soft leather sewed together in sections, much like ours, and are
stuffed with caribou hair. The hair of the caribou, being hollow, is
very buoyant; this is why the animals float nearly half out of water
after they are killed. Their hollow hair is often used in manufacturing
life preservers and is considered better than cork. Balls filled
solidly with it bounce quite well, and the Eskimos have a lot of fun
kicking them about. Kak was rather good at games, though, of course,
he could not hold his own against men, but Kommana had no use for them.
“You’ll be old before you’re grown!” Taptuna jollied him. “Come and
take a turn at this--just try.”
He sent the ball spinning with a good kick-off. Fatty watched but shook
his head.
“Ah, leave him be, dad! He’s always tired,” Kak cried.
He sat down by his friend and was soon telling stories of their
southern travels. Kommana wanted to hear all about Jimmie Muskrat, and
Selby, and Noashak’s adventure with the deer. They talked till nearly
dark, and when the younger boy got back to the tent he found his father
and Okak in a friendly dispute concerning the best route home.
Taptuna’s idea was to go westward, striking across the mouth of the
straits for Cape Baring, the southwest corner of Victoria Island,
where they would have a very good chance of killing a few polar
bears before the hardest frost set in, causing the open water to lie
farther and farther offshore, and leaving them to their regular life
on the ice catching seals. Okak as usual was raising objections. He
still had a quantity of trade goods, and things from their spring
cache made the load heavy. His neighbor pooh-poohed this, for they
might count on smooth going; but Okak was not to be easily moved. He
sat, brows knitted, a picture of worry, and tried to think up better
objections. Guninana glanced at him once or twice with a merry twinkle
in her eye. She knew his trouble--the poor chap was scared stiff about
bear hunting. The woman guessed right, but at that she guessed only
half his misery. Either way made Okak tremble in his shoes. For days
and days recollection of his cold ducking, with renewed horror of
snatching currents and bending ice, had been haunting his memory. He
did not forget it would be safer farther west where the water flows
more slowly--but what is the use of a safety leading straight into the
jaws of nasty, snarling bears? He growled like a bear himself, seeing
Taptuna wink at his wife.
In her heart of hearts Guninana sympathized with the nervous man. She
would have been better pleased to settle down on the ice immediately,
even if it meant eating seal and nothing but seal for months; and so
she was highly delighted when Okak suddenly burst out:
“Two dogs are not sufficient! With only two men and two dogs the
results will be as poor as the hunting is risky, and all our time
wasted.”
Nobody answered this for it was sound reasoning. The little man sat
back rubbing his knees with a that-settles-it sort of superior manner.
“Alunak might join us,” Taptuna muttered, annoyed.
“He has promised his wife to go to Franklin Bay and try to meet the
Kabluna. She wants some steel needles.”
Guninana’s speech sounded gently satisfied; Okak observed it and
swelled with importance.
“Two dogs----” he began, intending to enlarge on his happy inspiration,
but it was just at this moment Kak entered.
“Who said ‘two dogs’?” the lively lad cried in a round, booming,
out-of-doors voice. “What about Kanik--_my_ pup? I’d have you remember
we’ve got three dogs now!”
The resonant words shot like a boomerang through Okak’s
self-complacence. Instantly he knew the cause lost. He heard it in
Guninana’s little gasp; read it in his neighbor’s sparkling eyes bent
on the intruder.
“You think of everything, my boy. I had forgotten Kanik.”
Taptuna spoke quietly, but all saw his elation. He felt immensely
proud of Kak, and in that the boy’s mother must join him. Fresh proof
of her son’s cleverness always put Guninana into beaming good humor;
moreover, it is fun to play on the winning side. The family joined
forces against Okak and silenced his arguments if not his fears.
They agreed to travel as far as Crocker River with Alunak’s party, and
this journey turned out harder and slower than anybody had anticipated,
for a strong wind from the northwest blew directly in their faces all
the way. At the river Okak made a final throw for safety by trying to
persuade their friends to join forces in bear hunting at the eleventh
hour. Alunak himself was minded to do so, if it had not been for his
wife’s fixed idea about needles. He had promised, and the lady being
a very dominant person meant to see that he kept his promise. They
all got into a great discussion over it, which lasted while they were
house-building and eating, and commenced again the next morning.
Nothing would turn the woman; Guninana even offered to lend her a
needle for as long as they were in Victoria Island, but she held to
her point. Perhaps she was as curious to see the Kabluna as to inspect
his trade goods; Kak thought so anyway, and blazing with a wild hope
suggested they might all go on to Franklin Bay first. When his father
answered “No,” most emphatically, he grew tired of the merry argument
and, deciding to take his dog for a walk, went out alone.
Kanik leaped up, pawing his master’s shoulders, making no end of a fuss
and acting silly as a pup does; the pair were perfectly happy till
Sapsuk got on to what was afoot and whined, wagging his tail, pleading
to be allowed to go. In his present mood the boy thought two a company
and three a crowd, so he felt annoyed. Sapsuk might be his favorite,
but Kanik was his own--if you have ever possessed a dog you will
understand. Kak was so torn between the two that in the end he took
neither.
“You have to work hard, and it is better for you to rest,” he
admonished like a grandfather, and started off, his walk already half
spoiled. “If Sapsuk keeps this up I’ll never be able to teach the pup
anything!” the boy muttered fretfully, for the first time wishing his
friend had loved him a little less.
Conditions showed that the wind blowing against them all the way along
must have been here a heavy, continuous gale. It had piled more ice
into the western mouth of the straits than had ever been known before.
The coast rose high. From its cliffs Kak beheld great masses of ice
filling the whole expanse, rolling away billow on billow like a prairie
country, goodness knew how deep under the trackless, gleaming snow.
“Jimminy!” thought the boy. “This old sea is going to take some
crossing!”
He questioned if Omialik had started and felt a pang considering how
near his hero might be at that minute and he unable to reach him. Then
recollection of Okak brought a grin. “Our neighbor wanted it thick
and he’s got it--perhaps he’ll be sorrier yet we didn’t travel by the
eastern straits. I wonder what the going really is like out there?”
To think was to act with Kak. He immediately scrambled down the cliffs
and a half hour later was walking alone over the corrugated ice field.
It was a shimmering sort of day. The sun struggled to penetrate the
clouds, but did not quite emerge. The world lay trackless, formless,
shadowless, a vast expanse of gray-white sky and gray-white snow. This
kind of light is far harder on the eyes than bright sunshine, and since
his snowblindness Kak had been very nervous about eyes. He kept his
screwed up, not looking intently at anything, nor paying much attention
to where he went, for he counted on the cliffs to guide him back. He
only wanted to get a general impression of what their next march would
be like and so strolled carelessly up a high ridge for a better view.
All at once Kak felt himself falling. He instantly thrust out his
elbows so they would catch on the edges of the ice, for he knew what
had happened. Stepping heedlessly he had walked on to the snow roof
of a crevasse and had gone through into the crack. This is a common
form of Arctic accident. The boy expected to stop when he had fallen
as far at his waist, and to be able to hoist himself out, none the
worse for his adventure; but to his surprise and horror he kept right
on falling. The width of this chasm was so great that his elbows did
not reach the walls. For an instant Kak felt helplessly angry--then
the serious side broke on him. He was falling, falling--where to? On
what would he strike--ice or water? How far would he fall? How hard
would he strike? Sick with fear he tried to use his frenzied wits. It
darted into his mind like a javelin that they would not know at home
where he had gone, for snow so hard-driven by the gale was trackless
as a rock. How he wished now he had taken either of the dogs, or both!
He thought of Omialik, regretting Herschel Island, and in the middle
of his keenest sorrow for the young marksman who would never be, both
feet hit suddenly, smack on glare ice, flew from under him, and pitched
him shoulder on against the solid wall. He slid down, smashing the
back of his head, and lay still. Pain mingled with relief. It seemed
for a moment as if nothing again could ever be so bad as that falling
sensation. But the brief happiness passed. He realized he was lying
captive between two high, hard, slippery sides, which towered above
his head in twilight to the snow roof of the crevasse, offering no
way out of that strange, cold prison. Above he could see the jagged
hole he had torn in falling, and beyond it the gray sky. Through a
fresh tide crack in the ice floor he saw water. Fear gripped him again
when he thought how a little less frost would have allowed him to go
right splash into it; for when an ice cake cracks it splits from top
to bottom, leaving open ocean. Had the storm which roofed the tunnel
over brought a spell of warm weather instead of cold, as storms often
do, there would have been no floor formed in the crevasse. Bad as his
plight was, things might have been infinitely worse. Suppose he had
been floundering and freezing now--drowning, down in the bottom of that
dismal jail without means of escape or alarm. Again, and this time in
a very different mood, he regretted leaving his faithful dog. Sapsuk
would have had sufficient intelligence to run and fetch Taptuna.
Kak knew very well nobody would come to help him, so he must help
himself. As a beginning he took stock of his condition. One hip and
shoulder were badly bruised and painful, and a goose egg was already
developing on his head; but no bones seemed to be broken, nor could he
find sprains or dislocations. So far so good. His first idea was to
cut steps in the face of the ice wall and climb out. Putting his hand
to his belt he found both knife and sheath had been torn away. “Still,
it must be here,” the boy said bravely, and commenced looking around.
The tide crack mocked him like an open, laughing mouth. “Foxes! If
it has gone in there!” he cried, fumbling frantically under the snow
which had showered down with his fall. Presently his fingers rapped on
a horn handle. He made one grab and almost wept for joy. Just then his
knife seemed his salvation; but five minutes later it had lost half
of its value. On trial he found the sides were too far apart for him
to support himself by a braced arm or knee as he climbed, and walking
straight up a perpendicular, slippery surface by toe holes is an utter
impossibility.
Kak now understood getting away was going to take all his invention
and nerve and strength. The first step was to learn his surroundings.
This crack might run smaller or lower at some other point. He set out
exploring. It was an eerie sort of business to turn his back on the
pool of light striking through the roof hole, and crawl over glare ice,
between those blue-white walls, into the very heart of the stupendous
jam he had so recently viewed with wonder from the cliffs. On hands
and knees the boy began his strange and thrilling tour. His position
brought him close to the floor, and once beyond the showered snow
he saw tracks in the hoarfrost on the ice which made him flinch. He
had company in the tunnel. The footsteps went both ways, as if some
poor trapped creature had run to and fro, to and fro, in a crazy hunt
for freedom. Kak knew very well what tracks these were. Acute dread
shuddered over him. “But the crevasse may be long,” he comforted
himself. “With luck I may get out before we meet.”
He crawled for thirty yards, stood up, and tried to guess the height
of his prison. The snow roof looked thick and solid here, and though
some light filtered through it, and doubtless a little through the ice
itself, the gloom was sufficiently thick to confuse calculation. Space
seemed to yawn above him; Kak felt rather than saw those walls were
higher and wider apart; so he retreated to his first position and, only
waiting to take one long look up at the friendly sky, set out in the
opposite direction.
There was no question about it, the walls lowered toward this end.
Fired with hope our boy scuttled along like a crab. The ice lay
perfectly smooth, slippery as a ballroom floor. He crawled a few
feet and stopped to glance above, and crawled on, and stopped, till
familiarity made him careless. Very soon he was crawling and gazing
upward together, forgetful of everything but his anxiety to climb out.
Then suddenly the advanced arm plunged down splash into another tide
crack. Kak uttered a yap of surprise, snatched back his hand, peeled
off the wet mitt and dried his fingers quickly on his clothes. It
had not gone in above the wrist, but a wet mitt was going to be less
comfortable than a dry one; the captive felt vexed at his stupidity,
blamed his position for it and scrambling to his feet walked slowly,
steadying himself with his right arm against the wall, which bent at
a gentle angle. Soon he spied ahead a second pool of light, a second
scattering of snow from a hole in the ceiling. For an instant Kak felt
glad--misery loves company--then it dawned on him what had fallen
through, and his teeth chattered. This snow, packed and trodden down,
looked several days old. Would he find a dead thing here entombed with
him--or worse, a hungry living thing?
It took all the boy’s grit to make him go on. Only the sight of those
lowering sides lent him courage. His sole chance for safety might lie
hand in hand with this mysterious danger if the beast had elected to
live in the small end of the crack. Light was failing again as he moved
away from the second hole, and the darkness tortured his trembling
nerves. Cautiously the lad stole on. His right hand grasped his knife,
his left was ready for action; while he seemed to cling to the slippery
path by his toes.
On either hand the sides sloped downward. “If it keeps on like this the
crack will end in a cave,” Kak thought, “a cave with a top of soft snow
well within my reach.”
Sure enough! He came to another corner, rounded it timidly, and found
himself facing the end of the tunnel where the walls ran sharply
together, forming a narrow cave. In this cave, filling it completely,
stood a full-grown wolf. Its gaunt, gray form was partly shrouded by
gray gloom, but the yellow eyes looking out of that triangular face
were horribly alive. Kak stopped, choking back fear. He swallowed. His
breath caught and came in sobs, turn about. He wanted to fly and was
too frightened; so he just stood like a fool, waiting for the famished
animal to spring and devour him. The wolf waited also.... Little by
little, as nothing happened, the boy regained his common sense. Of
course the wolf would be scared, poor thing, cornered that way with
no means of escape! He saw it was petrified by fear. It looked thin
and hungry and was probably weak. Kak felt very sorry for his fellow
prisoner, yet he wanted to put distance between them. One never knows
the strength and wickedness of a wild animal at bay.
The two stood regarding each other, neither of them moving. Kak had the
advantage--he could retreat. His brain worked madly.
“If I go back to the second hole,” he thought, “and try knocking some
more snow down and piling it up against the side of the crevasse,
possibly I can climb out there.”
Stealthily he edged away, keeping his eye on the foe till the curve of
the wall divided them; then he made tracks as fast as he could over the
glare ice.
Standing under the hole broken by the wolf’s fall Kak sent his knife
flying up against the roof; it fell back amid a tiny shower of snow.
He threw it again; a slightly heavier cloud descended. At each throw a
little more seemed to come down. The boy was all eagerness; he tossed
and tossed and tossed in a fury of excitement till he saw the precious
knife suddenly shoot up against the sky. For one terrifying instant
it looked as if it would fall outside on top of the crust. His heart
stopped beating. He shut his eyes. Hours seemed to pass before the
tinkle of copper on ice broke his tension.
“Bears and foxes! How could I have been so careless hopping about that
way and never giving a thought!”
Facing a large, ravenous wolf with a knife in one’s hand, and facing
the same beast unarmed are vastly different. This momentary shock made
it clear to Kak he was fairly well off, but it jarred his faith in the
new scheme. He was afraid now to throw with energy and abandon, and the
roof seemed too hardly packed to be broken by half measures. He scraped
the loose snow together with his feet, piled it up, patting it hard by
hand, stood on it and tried to reach the top. But most of the mound had
been lying on the ice floor and was all powdery cold so that it broke
under his weight.
“This will take days!” the boy cried in despair. “I’ll be hungry and
maybe freeze, or perhaps the others will give me up and go away.”
His fingers in the wet mitt felt bitterly cold. Taking it off he
drew his hand through the loose sleeve of his coat and shirt and
cuddled it against his warm body while he stood gazing at the height
of those forbidding sides. All the time his glance rested on their
inaccessibility his mind was busy reckoning how low they ran in the
cave behind the wolf.
“I’ve got to do it! I’ve got to do it! I must get out of here before
night,” wailed Kak. He turned and looked undaunted down the tunnel.
“I’ve just got to!”
Screwing his courage to the breaking point and grasping his knife more
firmly the second prisoner crept forward to the angle in the wall. He
shoved his head around cautiously. There stood the wolf exactly as Kak
had left him. He seemed too frightened even to blink his eyes.
Quite aside from the fear of combat Kak was reluctant to attack this
poor caged animal.
“If it only wasn’t so narrow there I could shove in and shove him
out--given a chance he’d split past me like the wind.”
But it was narrow in the cave, much too narrow for any maneuver of that
sort.
“I’ve got to kill him and haul him out! I haven’t any choice,” cried
the boy.
[Illustration: KAK RUSHED FORWARD WITH HIS KNIFE READY.]
Kak rushed forward with his knife ready and his left arm thrown up in
front guarding his face. When the beast reared and hurled itself for
a grasp of the enemy’s throat its long jaws closed on the shielding
wrist. With a gasp of pain the boy flung his arm wide, wrenching the
wolf’s head clear around, and at the same second stuck his blade deep
into the side under its foreleg. Between the double shock of the twist
and the blow his victim lost its footing and fell to the ground with a
heavy crash, dragging the hunter down on top of him. For a moment Kak
rolled amid a convulsed mass of feet and legs, then as the spasm ceased
the vise grip on his arm relaxed, and the animal fell limp. Such narrow
quarters had offered no chance for a fair fight; it was lunge, grab
or be grabbed, and die.
The boy scrambled to his knees, withdrew his knife, dragged the warm
body out of the way, and with a shudder sprang from it into the extreme
end of the crevasse. For five minutes he worked off his emotion by
hacking snow like a madman. It fell around and over him in showers,
hiding the bloody trail that oozed across the ice and the spatters from
his wounded wrist of which, in his haste to get away, he took no heed.
All at once the roof broke, came down like an avalanche, and the fresh
air streamed in. The boy stopped for a deep breath. He could grasp
the ice edge with his fingers, but it was still too high for him to
pull himself out. He worked swiftly, cutting blocks from the ceiling
and piling their fragments against the end of the crack; and all the
time it seemed as if that hideous wolf behind was rearing over him,
fixed-eyed and open-mouthed.
Kak was pretty tired and unstrung when finally he placed both hands
on the crusted snow and drew himself into freedom. How good the air
tasted. How heartening was the vast horizon sweep! He ran to warm up,
for it had been searchingly cold down in the bottom of that deep ice
pit. “Bhooo!” he shivered, nursing his sore arm. Running soon set the
healthy blood coursing in his veins; his body tingled and his spirits
rose.
As soon as his nerves grew normal Kak’s point of view changed. He saw
the hair-raising experience might be turned into splendid adventure.
“Why not have some honor out of this?” the boy thought. So instead
of dashing home all trembling and excited, he held himself down to a
steady walk, stopped outside a minute to give old Sapsuk an apologetic
little love pat, also for the sake of seeming casual, and then strode
in.
“I’ve killed a wolf, dad,” he said. “It’s a thin, poor thing, but it
will help. See here.” And he threw his bloody knife on the floor by way
of evidence.
Guninana wasted no time on the weapon; one glance at his sleeve and
mitt set her bustling around for rude means of relief. The others cried
out in amazement, examined the knife, bombarded him with questions,
laughed and clapped like children, quaked and marveled, while Kak
wallowed in praise and the show of his mother’s attentions. Okak was
for going after the carcass at once; but the hunter assured him the
meat was safely cached, and burst into laughter at what he called a
good joke--then he had to explain. Unable any longer to keep up his
hero pose he told the whole story.
It was an amazing story. Such ice formations are more common in the
Antarctic than the north. Everybody flocked over to see the crevasse
and help bring the victim home. Taptuna skinned the wolf beautifully;
and you may be sure the boy was very careful to pack his trophy next
morning, when the parties separated, each going its own way with
perfect understanding, and much calling of gay good-bys back and fore.
Our friends were in high spirits. No one really minded the difficulties
of rolling ridges and heavy travel. Guninana gloried in her son; Kak
was triumphant; Taptuna seemed as proud of his new sled as Noashak of
her coat with red trimmings. And Okak had enough trade goods to make
him a well-to-do man.
Their summer trip had prospered through strenuous labor and thrilling
feats, and they all looked forward to their winter on the ice as a
well-earned holiday.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
The illustration listed as facing page 43 in the _List of
Illustrations_ does not appear in the original book.
The caption for the Frontispiece was added by the transcriber based
upon the _List of Illustrations_.