Poor little AH-NI-GHI´-TO thought that in a few hours at most the ship would cross Smith Sound and reach her first landing-place on the opposite shore, Cape Sabine, only thirty miles away, where a depot of supplies and coal would be landed for the use of those on board the “Windward” in case she should be crushed in the ice, while trying to get north, and her people forced to return to the shore in boats. But it took eight long days to reach this place, and during all of this time there was hardly a moment when the ship was not in danger.
Sometimes the great sheets of ice would hold the “Windward” in their grasp and not allow her to move an inch. Then the current would take her, together with the ice, and drift the whole southward. In this way the ship was often farther south at the end of the day than she was when she started to steam north a few hours before. At these times when the “Windward” was drifting she was perfectly motionless and AH-NI-GHI´-TO, together with Percy and some of the Eskimos, would climb over the side of the ship onto the Hoes and there they would play and slide on the smooth ice; and once Captain Sam lashed two Norwegian skates called “Ski” together, and she coasted down the slopes of the ice hummocks. This was great sport and helped pass the time.
“Eskimo Family”
There were other times that were not so pleasant when the heavy fields of ice would crush against the ship so fiercely that pieces would break off and pile up against her sides till some of them fell upon the deck, and the ship would groan and tremble with the pressure like a person in pain. At times the ship would force her way between mountains of ice so high that the boats hanging at the davits had to be hauled in to keep them from being smashed, and all the seamen climbed out and chopped away the overhanging pinnacles as fast as possible so that the rigging would not be cut or torn away.
At last, after eight weary days in the ice, the little harbour was reached. Here a family of Eskimos had been watching the ship during the last three days, fearing all the time that she would be crushed and sink. Now there was great rejoicing, for the Eskimos on the ship had not seen this family since early Spring, and all were eager to gossip.
This family consisted of a man, Accom-moding-wah, his wife, Ah-we-a, a son of seven years, Ne-ah-kwa, and a daughter of twelve, Ach-ah-ting-wah. The boy, though some months older than AH-NI-GHI´-TO, was still a perfect baby; his mother nursing him like an infant; but the girl was a playmate for AH-NI-GHI´-TO and they soon became friends.
VI
