To-day he would not wait the conclusion of dinner, but, with his telescope strapped across his shoulder, he had scrambled right up to the crow’s-nest itself, to have one look round before the sun went down again.
At sea it is always the strange and the unexpected that is happening.
But when Wright turned his glass towards the great snow-lands of the west, he started back and rubbed his eyes.
Were those eyes deceiving him?
He wiped the glass and looked again.
“Mercy on us!” he muttered. “Who or what are these?”
It was a team of some kind that had just come over the horizon, and was now wending its way adown the league-long slope towards the head of the bay.
And now he can make them out more distinctly. It was some wild and wandering tribe of semi-savages from the interior, with dogs and sledges and men on skis,[A] or snow-shoes.
He knew that these roving bands were dangerous, and that they came but to rob or even to carry off into exile the more peaceable Yaks who live along the shores.
So he went hurrying down now to make his report, and soon the news spread through the ship, and the excitement was very great indeed.