Some of the men were prevented from being on the spot for bird shooting as promptly as they desired by the fact that their boats, having lain up all winter, were not "plymmed." If you put a dried apple, for instance, into water it "plymms"; so do beans, and so do boats. When a boat is not "plymmed," it leaks in all its seams, and is therefore looked upon as unsafe for these sub-Arctic waters by the more conservative amongst us. To stop a boat leaking you "chinch" the seams with oakum. Our fisherman sexton has just told me that "the church was right chinched last night."
One by one our supplies are giving out or diminishing. Each week as I send down an order to the store it is returned with some item crossed off. These articles at home would be considered the indispensables. Already potatoes have gone the way of all flesh; there is no more butter (though that is less loss than it sounds, for it was packed on the schooner directly next the kerosene barrels, and a liberal quantity of that volatile liquid incorporated itself in each tub of "oleo"). We are warned that the remaining amount of flour will not hold out till the spring boat—our first possible chance of getting reinforcements for our larder—unless we exercise the watchfulness of the Sphinx. The year before I came the first boat did not reach St. Antoine till the 28th of June.
More excitement has just been communicated to me by Topsy: much more. A man from the Baie des Français has killed a huge polar bear. It took ten men and six dogs to haul the beast home after he had been finally dispatched. The man fired several shots at him, but did not hit a vital spot. One bullet only remained to him, and the bear was coming at him in a very purposeful manner. "Now or never," thought the fisherman, and fired. The creature fell dead almost at his feet. When they skinned him they found bullets in his legs and flank, but searched and searched in vain for the fatal one which had been the end of him. There was no mark on the skin in any vital spot. At last they found it. The ball had penetrated exactly through the bear's ear into his brain. All the countryside is now dining off bear steak; and there is a splendid skin to be purchased if you are so minded. I have eaten a bit of the steak, though I confess I did not sit down to the feast with any pleasurable anticipation, as the men said that they found the remains of a recently devoured seal in Bruin's "tum." I had an agreeable surprise. The meat was fibrous and a little tough, but it was quite good—a vast improvement on the sea-birds which are so highly valued in the local commissariat.
It was his Last Bullet
The Prophet has a vivid idea of the processes going on in the heads of animals. He says that up to fifteen years ago there were bears innumerable "in the country." "And one day, miss," he explained, "the whole crew of them gets their anchors and leaves in a body." To hear him one would imagine that at a concerted signal the bears came out of their burrows and shook the dust of the land from their feet.
The Eskimos toll the seals. They lie on the ice and wave their legs in the air, and the seals, curious animals, approach to discover the nature of the phenomenon, and are forthwith dispatched. One Eskimo of a histrionic temperament decided to "go one better." He went out to the ice edge, climbed into his sealskin sleeping-bag, and waved his legs, as per stage directions. We are not informed whether the device would have proved a successful decoy to the seals, for before any had been lured within range, another Innuit, having seen the sealskin legs gesticulating on the ice edge, naturally mistook them for the real thing, fired with regrettable accuracy, and went out to find a dead cousin.
The story is the only deterrent I have from dressing in my white Russian hareskin coat, and sitting in the graveyard some dusky evening. The people claim that the place is haunted. I have never met a "Yoho" and never expect to, but I would dearly love to see how others act when they think they have. Only the suspicion that they would "plump for safety," and fire the inevitable muzzle-loader at my white garment, keeps me from making the experiment in corpore vile.
The birds and the seals and the bears and white foxes coming south on the moving ice are signs of spring. There is a stir in the air as if the people as well sensed that the back of the long winter was broken. How it has flown! You cannot fancy my sensations of lonesomeness when I think that I shall never spend another in this country. You cannot describe or analyze the lure of the land and its people, but it is there, and grips you. I have grown to love it, and you will welcome home an uncomplimentary homesick comrade when September comes.