“Ha, Frank, my lad, the very man I wanted to see! Here’s a letter from headquarters ordering me off on an expedition to Ungava. Now, I want volunteers; will you go!”
It is needless to add that Frank’s blue eyes sparkled with animation as he seized his friend’s hand and replied, “To the North Pole if you like, or farther if need be!”
It was evening. The sun was gilding the top of the flagstaff with a parting kiss, and the inhabitants of Moose Fort, having finished their daily toil, were making preparations for their evening meal. On the end of the wharf that jutted out into the stream was assembled a picturesque group of men, who, from the earnest manner in which they conversed, and the energy of their gesticulations, were evidently discussing a subject of more than ordinary interest. Most of them were clad in corduroy trousers, gartered below the knee with thongs of deer-skin, and coarse, striped cotton shirts, open at the neck, so as to expose their sunburnt breasts. A few wore caps which, whatever might have been their original form, were now so much soiled and battered out of shape by long and severe service that they were nondescript; but most of these hardy backwoodsmen were content with the covering afforded by their thick, bushy locks.
“No, no,” exclaimed a short, thick-set, powerful man, with a somewhat ascetic cast of countenance; “I’ve seen more than enough o’ these rascally Huskies (Esquimaux). ’Tis well for me that I’m here this blessed day, an’ not made into a dan to bob about in Hudson’s Straits at the tail of a white whale, like that poor boy Peter who was shot by them varmints.”
“What’s a dan?” asked a young half-breed who had lately arrived at Moose, and knew little of Esquimau implements.
“What a green-horn you must be, François, not to know what a dan is!” replied another, who was inclined to be quizzical. “Why, it’s a sort of sea-carriage that the Esquimaux tie to the tail of a walrus or sea-horse when they feel inclined for a drive. When they can’t get a sea-horse they catch a white whale asleep, and wake him up after fastening the dan to his tail. I suppose they have conjurers or wizards among them, since Massan told us just now that poor Peter was—”
“Bah! gammon,” interrupted François with a smile, as he turned to the first speaker. “But tell me, Massan, what is a dan?”
“It’s a sort o’ float or buoy, lad, used by the Huskies, and is made out o’ the skin o’ the seal. They tie it with a long line to their whale spears to show which way the fish bolts when struck.”
“And did they use Peter’s skin for such a purpose?” inquired François earnestly.
“They did,” replied Massan.