That was a weary day. We came upon a large creek in the forenoon and had to ascend its east bank for a long distance to cross it, as the tide had broken the ice below. Some distance up the stream its valley was wooded by just enough scattered spruce trees to hold the snow, and wallowing and floundering through this was most exhausting.
During the day Kumuk proposed to the other Eskimos that they take all the food and leave the white men to their fate. They had rifles while we had none, and we could not resist. Potokomik would not hear of it. He remained our friend. Kumuk did not like the small ration that I dealt out, and if they could get the food out of our possession they would have more for themselves.
That night a snow house was built, with the exception of rounding the dome at the top, over which Potokomik spread his blanket; but it was a poor shelter, and not much warmer than the open. When I lay down I was dripping with perspiration from the exertion of the day and during the night had a severe chill.
The next day a storm threatened. We crossed another stream and halted, at twelve o’clock, upon the western side of it to make tea. The Eskimos held a consultation here and then Potokomik told us that they were afraid of heavy snow and that it was thought best to cache everything that we had—blankets, food and everything—and with nothing to encumber us hurry on to a tupek that we should reach by dark, and that there we should find shelter and food. Accordingly everything was left behind but the rifles, which the Eskimos clung to, and we started on at a terrific pace over wind-swept hills and drift-covered valleys, where all that could be seen was a white waste of unvarying snow. We had been a little distance inland, but now worked our way down toward the coast. Once we crossed an inlet where we had to climb over great blocks of ice that the tide in its force had piled there.
Just at dusk the Eskimos halted. We had reached the place where the tupek should have been, but none was there. Afterward I learned that the people whom Potokomik expected to find here had been caught on their way from Whale River by the ice and their boat was crushed.
Another consultation was held, and as a result we started on again. After a two hours’ march Potokomik halted and the others left us. Easton and I threw ourselves at full length upon the snow and went to sleep on the instant. A rifle shot aroused us, and Potokomik jumped to his feet with the exclamation, “Igloo!” We followed him toward where Kumuk was shouting, through a bit of bush, down a bank, across a frozen brook and up a slope, where we found a miserable little log shack. No one was there. It was a filthy place and snow had drifted in through the openings in the roof and side. The previous occupant of the hut had left behind him an ax and an old stove, and with a few sticks of wood that we found a fire was started and we huddled close to it in a vain effort to get warm. When the fire died out we found places to lie down, and, shivering with the cold, tried with poor success to sleep.
I had another chill that night and severe cramps in the calves of my legs, and when morning came and Easton said he could not travel another twenty yards, I agreed at once to a plan of the Eskimos to leave us there while they went on to look for other Eskimos whom they expected to find in winter quarters east of Whale River. Potokomik promised to send them with dogs to our rescue and then go on with a letter to Job Edmunds, the Hudson’s Bay Company’s agent at Whale River. This letter to Edmunds I scribbled on a stray bit of paper I found in my pocket, and in it told him of our position, and lack of food and clothing.
Potokomik left his rifle and some cartridges with us, and then with the promise that help should find us ere we had slept three times, we shook hands with our dusky friend upon whose honor and faithfulness our lives now depended, and the three were gone in the face of a blinding snowstorm.