When within a mile I put two Eskimos in advance with two dogs and followed close behind with my carbine.
When the gray dog saw the musk-oxen and was loosened, my fear came on again; had he strength enough to overtake them and then to dodge their horns?
The shore here was a steep bank like a railway fill, with a slope of about 30 degrees and three hundred feet or more in height. The animals were just a little back of the crest of the bank.
Like a thin shadow the gray dog went straight up the slope, the little black bitch following, and I saw the musk-oxen start to run, then round-up together. Then as the crest of the slope hid them from me, I saw the body of the poor bitch go into the air from the horns of the bull. Poor thing, she had been very faithful but her courage was greater than her strength, and the sharp horns had been too quick for her. Should I be in time, or would the bull send the gray dog after the bitch, and then put miles of snow and rocks between us and his shaggy harem before they stopped?
I went up the slope as rapidly as possible but there was no hurry in me, my heart was pounding till the crest of the slope above me danced like the Northern Lights, and mouth and nostrils together could not feed air to me half fast enough. The two Eskimos who had the dogs were just ahead of me, Ahngmalokto beside me, and the other four lying on the ice-foot getting their breath. Mounting the crest I saw the musk-oxen in the usual stellar group of shaggy forms, white horns and gleaming eyes; the body of the bitch lying a short distance away, and the gray dog worrying the bull and dodging his vicious charges. Poor beggar, his weak legs bent beneath him, he stumbled repeatedly in trying to avoid the charges of the bull, and the heaving of his gaunt sides was painful to see, but the blood lust shone in his eyes, the wolf heart of his fathers kept him to his work, and every time the bull swung back to the herd, he returned to the attack.
“Hold them for a moment or two longer, brave gray, till I get my breath, then both of us will eat our fill.”
A SAMPLE OF THE ARCTIC PACK
AS THEY ROUNDED UP