It had been on the point of the sailor's tongue several times to apologize for the kick of the evening before, but he felt that the result of it all was a sufficient apology of itself. Besides, there are some matters in life which it is best to pass over in silence.
The wild men showed little sentiment in their nature. Seeing that all was ready, they cracked their whips, called out to their dogs, and off they went.
Jack and the boys turned their heads to take a last look at Docak, who had served them so faithfully and well. As they did so, they observed him plowing through the snow again to the westward, his form quickly disappearing among the myriad snowflakes. They never saw him again.
The first thought that came to each of the passengers, after the start was fairly made, was that the forty miles' journey could not be accomplished before nightfall. The sleighs were so heavily loaded with pelts and themselves that they formed quite a task for the dogs, which of necessity sank deep in the snow. But they tugged and kept at it with a spirit worthy of all admiration.
But one of the remarkable features of the blizzard and snow storm that had come so near destroying our friends quickly made itself apparent, and raised their hopes to the highest point.
The fall of snow decreased until at the end of half an hour not an eddying flake was in the air. The sun, after struggling awhile, managed to show itself, and the glare of the excessively white surface fairly blinded the passengers for a time. They noticed, however, that the depth of the last fall continued to grow less, until to their unbounded amazement and relief it disappeared altogether. They struck the hard surface, which was like a smooth floor, and capable of bearing ten times the weight of the sleighs without yielding.
This proved that the blizzard was of less extent than supposed. The wild men more than likely were beyond its reach, while Docak and his companions were caught in its very centre. Its fury extended southward but a short way, and the party had now crossed the line. The country before them was like that over which Jack and the boys set out to prosecute their hunt for game.
The travelers were like athletes, who, emerging from a struggle with the angry waters, find themselves on solid land, free to run and leap to their heart's content. They had shaken off the incubus, and now sped forward with renewed speed and ease. The small feet of the dogs slipped occasionally, but they readily secured enough grip, and the sleighs, hardly scratching the frozen surface, required but a fractional part of their strength. Several uttered their odd barks of pleasure, at finding their labor so suddenly turned into what might be called a frolic.
But the wild men were a source of never-ending wonder to the whites. They sped forward through the soft snow, with no more apparent effort than the skilled skater puts forth, and when they struck the smooth surface, they became more like skaters than snow-shoe travelers. They cracked their whips about the ears of the dogs, called sharply, and made them yelp from the stinging bites of the whips handled with a dexterity that would have flicked off a fly from the front dog's ears, had there been one there.
(If we were not opposed to all forms of slang, we would be tempted to say just here that there are no flies on the Esquimaux canines.)