In two minutes Edith reappeared in her fur cloak and Indian hood, with the fat baby sprawling and laughing on her shoulder. That baby never cried. It seemed as though it had resolved to substitute laughing in its stead. Once only had Edith seen tears in its little black eyes, and that was when she had given it a spoonful of soup so hot that its mouth was scalded by it.
Several of the sledges had already left the island, and were flying at full speed over the frozen sea, deviating ever and anon from the straight line in order to avoid a hummock of ice or a gap of open water caused by the separation of masses at the falling of the tide, while the men shouted, and the dogs yelled as they observed the flourish of the cruelly long and heavy lash.
“Shall I get in?” said Edith to Annatock, with an inquiring look, as she approached the place where the sledge was standing.
The Esquimau nodded his shaggy head, and showed a row of remarkably white teeth environed by a thick black beard and moustache, by way of reply to the look of the child.
With a laughing nod to Kaga, who stood watching them, Edith stepped in and seated herself on a deerskin robe; Annatock and Peetoot sat down beside her; the enormous whip gave a crack like a pistol-shot, and the team of fifteen dogs, uttering a loud cry, bounded away over the sea.
The sledge on which Edith was seated was formed very much in the same manner as the little sled which had been made for her at Fort Chimo. It was very much larger, how ever, and could have easily held eight or ten persons. The runners, which were shod with frozen mud (a substance that was now becoming nearly unfit for use owing to the warm weather), were a perfect wonder of ingenuity—as, indeed, was the whole machine—being pieced and lashed together with lines of raw hide in the most complicated manner and very neatly. The dogs were each fastened by a separate line to the sledge, the best dog being placed in the centre and having the longest line, while the others were attached by lines proportionably shorter according to the distance of each from the leading dog, and the outsiders being close to the runners of the sledge. All the lines were attached to the front bar of the machine. There were many advantages attending this mode of harnessing, among which were the readiness with which any dog could be attached or detached without affecting the others, and the ease with which Annatock, when so inclined, could lay hold of the line of a refractory dog, haul him back without stopping the others, and give him a cuffing. This, however, was seldom done, as the driver could touch any member of the team with the point of his whip. The handle of this terrible instrument was not much more than eighteen or twenty inches long, but the lash was upwards of six yards! Near the handle it was about three inches broad, being thick cords of walrus-hide platted; it gradually tapered towards the point, where it terminated in a fine line of the same material. While driving, the long lash of this whip trails on the snow behind the sledge, and by a peculiar sleight of hand its serpentine coils can be brought up for instant use.
No backwoodsman of Kentucky was ever more perfect in the use of his pea-rifle or more certain of his aim than was Annatock with his murderous whip. He was a dead shot, so to speak. He could spread intense alarm among the dogs by causing the heavy coil to whiz over them within a hair’s-breadth of their heads; or he could gently touch the extreme tip of the ear of a skulker, to remind him of his duty to his master and his comrades; or, in the event of the warning being neglected, he could bring the point down on his flank with a crack like a pistol-shot, that would cause skin and hair to fly, and spread yelping dismay among the entire pack. And how they did run! The sledge seemed a mere feather behind the powerful team. They sprang forth at full gallop, now bumping over a small hummock or diverging to avoid a large one, anon springing across a narrow gap in the ice, or sweeping like the snowdrift over the white plain, while the sledge sprang and swung and bounded madly on behind them; and Annatock shouted as he flourished his great whip in the excitement of their rapid flight, and Peetoot laughed with wild delight, and Edith sat clasping her hands tightly over her knees—her hood thrown back, her fair hair blown straight out by the breeze, her cheeks flushed, her lips parted, and her eyes sparkling with emotion as they whirled along in their mad and swift career.
In half an hour the low village was out of sight, and in half an hour more they arrived at the place where a number of the Esquimaux were scattered in twos and threes over the ice, searching for seal-holes, and preparing to catch them.
“What is that man doing?” cried Edith, pointing to an Esquimau who, having found a hole, had built a semicircular wall of snow round it to protect him from the light breeze that was blowing, and was sitting, when Edith observed him, in the attitude of one who listened intently. The hood of his sealskin coat was over his head, so that his features were concealed. At his feet lay a stout, barbed seal-spear, the handle of which was made of wood, and the barb and lower part of ivory. A tough line was attached to this, and the other end of it was fastened round the man’s waist; for when an Esquimau spears a seal, he prepares to conquer or to die. If he does not haul the animal out of the hole, there is every probability that it will haul him into it. But the Esquimau has laid it down as an axiom that a man is more than a match for a seal; therefore he ties the line round his waist,—which is very much like nailing the colours to the mast. There seems to be no allowance made for the chance of an obstreperously large seal allowing himself to be harpooned by a preposterously small Esquimau; but we suppose that this is the exception to the rule.
As Edith gazed, the Esquimau put out his hand with the stealthy motion of a cat and lifted his spear. The next instant the young ice that covered the hole was smashed, and, in an instant after, the ivory barb was deep in the shoulder of an enraged seal, which had thus fallen a sacrifice to his desire for fresh air. The Esquimau immediately lay back almost at full length, with his heels firmly imbedded in two notches cut in the ice at the edge of the hole; the seal dived, and the man’s waist seemed to be nearly cut in two. But the rope was tough and the man was stout, and although the seal was both, it was conquered in the course of a quarter of an hour, hauled out, and thrown exultingly upon the ice.