“So you see,” he added, “while I may not be following in the exact footsteps of Thorwaldsson, yet I am going over the same general route. Sooner or later we will cover the same ground which he covered again, and then I expect we shall find some other record which he has left behind, just as in the case of that note on the Hare Indian.”
This was enough for the boys. It satisfied their curiosity. They dismissed, or practically so, from their minds all worry as to the “Lost Expedition.” They were too busy enjoying life as they found it each waiting moment.
Around each bend in a stream that their paddles took them, on the shore of each deep, silent lake, was some new marvel. Now it would be a bear grunting on the bank. Again, a deer, probably a runaway from some Eskimo herd on Summer pasture as Farnum explained, standing in the stream, and starting with a snort into the timber at their approach. Occasionally a gray wolf could be seen loping in the distance. Now and again a beaver cut across stream.
With their light rifles the boys occasionally were permitted to pick off some game, usually wild ducks or geese, of which there were numbers along the watercourses. But nothing was shot wantonly. Many a time, youthful fingers itched on the trigger, only to be restrained by the thought of the cruel uselessness of shooting merely for sport.
Of other inhabitants in this vast northern wilderness, none were encountered. And at this the boys marvelled. It was as if they had the world to themselves. They could not understand it. To them it was a paradise.
“Wait till you see this in Winter,” said Farnum grimly. “Or rather, pray that you never do. It is a land of perpetual night, and the temperature is so low that when you stop moving you must have a fire or you will freeze to death. And it isn’t every day that you can travel. For this isn’t a land of tame Winter as you boys know it. Out of the north comes storms succeeding storm, pitiless in severity. Even the creatures of the wild cannot stand it, in many cases, and drift to the south.”
“But how about the Eskimo?” asked Jack. “This is their country, isn’t it? How do they stand it?”
“Sometimes they don’t,” said Farnum. “When the hunting is poor and famine stalks through the Eskimo village, only the hardiest survive.”
“Where do they live, anyway?” struck in Frank. “Why aren’t they around here? Why haven’t we seen any?”
“They may have seen us,” said Farnum, “and are avoiding us. They are a timorous people, know the white man only by tradition. To the Eskimo, the white man is a sort of god, at least to the Eskimo of all this country north of us. Back along the coast of Alaska, of course, some sort of contact has been made. But these Eskimo never come in touch with the whites. They are a migratory people. In Summer they range far and wide on the hunt. In the Winter, they retire to the edge of the Arctic Ocean.”