AFTER THE KILLING
THE HERD OF MUSK-OXEN, NARES LAND
I kicked off my snowshoes and sat down upon them for a moment to pull myself together. In that moment there passed before me all the weary days since we went on scant rations; the grim daily grind; the dismal waiting at the Styx for a chance to regain the world; the heart-breaking work through the shattered ice; the infernal groaning and crashing of the floes; the ever-present nightmare of more open water; the incessant gnawing under the belt; the bruised and aching feet; the burning eyes and face; the growing weakness; the tantalising mouthfuls of hare since we reached the land, and always this hope and picture before me, waking or sleeping—a herd of musk-oxen that should once more permit us to eat our fill. Here it was, now to business. I dropped my mittens, threw a cartridge into the barrel of my carbine, and advanced toward the herd. Faithful Ahngmalokto cried out—“Don’t go so near, Peary,” but this puny herd of musk-oxen was a trifle compared with the lead whose black embrace we had all faced, and I stepped between the gray dog and the bull. Crack! a tiny tuft of hair flew out from just back of the bull’s fore shoulder and he had something beside the gray dog to think of, though he did not go down. My bullet had missed his heart and gone through his lungs. Crack! the other bull made a jump forward, stopped, staggered a step or two backward, then lurched over on his side. My aim was better. Crack! Crack! the two old cows followed suit. Crack! the younger cow went the same way. The two yearlings were standing side by side close together, rigid with fright. Two or three steps to one side brought their fore shoulders in line; crack! the one bullet went through both their hearts and “pinged” on a rock beyond, as one fell on the other. I was one cartridge to the good and this I gave to the big bull as an act of mercy to put him out of his misery, standing there with braced feet, and blood-clogged nostrils, struggling for breath. I could not help thinking, as he went down, that it was a shame to enter their quiet lives in this murderous way. But their lives had been peaceful and their end was quick, while we had walked through the outskirts of hell, and had been dying by inches, and anyway what would it matter to any of us a hundred years from now—their bones bleaching here on these Arctic slopes, mine—where?
I had been through this same thing eleven years before, but such experiences do not increase a man’s elasticity. I threw myself down on the body of the bull as being less cold and hard than the snow, and heard the shouts of my Eskimos as they rushed at the carcasses; then the clicking of the knives and smacking of lips. Then the cold compelled me to pull myself together. Wet with perspiration next the skin and coated with frost outside, I knew the unpleasant hours before me and eating a few mouthfuls of raw meat, hastened to roll myself in one of the skins in the effort to get warm. It was no use. Wet as I was and weak and tired, the green skin seemed to be no protection against the biting wind, and for the next twelve hours I shivered and ached in my blanket shirt while the Eskimos and dogs ate till they were near bursting.
Then the tent, the little remaining camp gear, and the remainder of the party were brought up. Perhaps an hour before they arrived the wind came sweeping across the land with still greater force, increasing my discomfort, and I was more than glad to be able to crawl into the tent, where the night (owing to the wind), seemed the coldest of the entire trip.
This herd of musk-oxen comprised one large bull, one smaller bull with slightly deformed horns, two adult cows, one with a calf a few days old; the other ready to calve in a day or two, one small cow, and two yearlings, one male and one female.
All the animals were very thin, looking almost like skeletons when their skins were removed, but their paunches were full, and their coats in good condition, not at all ragged as were those of the Independence Bay musk-oxen at the same time of the year in 1892 and 1895. The animals were also smaller and the patch on the back perceptibly whiter than the Grant Land musk-oxen.
The tent was pitched as soon as it came up, then a circular wind-guard was built of snow blocks, the meat and bones dragged close to it, the skins spread inside, a tiny fire started with some willow twigs gathered in the vicinity, and helped out by pieces of a sledge, then my Eskimos sat themselves round and with occasional brief winks of sleep ate continuously for nearly two days and nights. I did my share too, and at the end of the time the pile of cleaned bones about the shelter was almost beyond belief. When I use the word cleaned I use it in its fullest sense. When a hungry Eskimo leaves a bone a fly could not find a mouthful about it. The meat has been gnawed off, the periosteum stripped off with the teeth like the bark from a twig, the bone split, the marrow removed, and the cavity sucked and licked till it is dry.
Our first march from the musk-oxen carried us abreast of Stephenson Island and was a particularly dragging one. The debilitating effect of our very generous diet of meat, much of which was eaten raw, did not show itself so much while we were quiescent in camp, but was very pronounced when we undertook to travel. I imagined at least that I felt weaker than at any time during the return, but my head was much more active, and I cheated the time away as I tramped mechanically in an air-line toward Cape May setting the trail for the rest of the party to follow, by plans for my western trip to be undertaken after we got back to the Roosevelt, and even went beyond the bounds of the present expedition and lifted myself out of the weary drag of our present surroundings by thoughts of home matters.