Before leaving the camp I asked the Indian to sell me some white fish for dog feed, of which I was short. He had plenty of it. I knew that he kept the frozen fish on the platform. He readily granted my request and while he busied himself dis-entangling the traces of my leader, which had got mixed up with a stump, I climbed on an empty box so as to reach the rack and get the fish.
Just at that moment the Indian shouted to me to take twenty fish which were already wrapped up in a dunnage bag, ready for packing on a sleigh. I glanced around, saw a brown package about two feet long and, without bothering to lift it, with one hand I pushed it so that it fell off the platform on to the ground.
As soon as it hit the frozen earth I noticed the peculiar sound it made—a crack like the branch of a tree snapping in the frost. Jumping down, I opened the parcel. There lay the dead body of a six months old child.
It was the Indian’s youngest baby. It had died at Christmas time and the man had stored it on the rack, far out of reach of the prowling dogs, until the summer came and the ground thawed out sufficiently to enable him to dig its little grave.
Tale XXXIX: Mother and Cubs
Late one evening in August, our ship was plowing her way through a sea of slushy ice and small pans in Hudson Straits. The weather was dead calm. Ahead of us, to the northwest, the sun was sinking over the horizon, staining sky and ice in crimson. Astern—to starboard—miles away, the rugged coast of Baffin Land loomed up, faint and dark.
The only sound which struck the ear was the steady droning of the engine; while now and then a pan of ice, cut in two by the ship’s stem, cracked under the impact, then groaned and grinded as it slid and was crushed under the keel.
Suddenly a sharp cry rang out from the crow’s nest, “White bear ahead—a she bear with two cubs. Two points at starboard.” Instantly every one rushed to the bow. Five hundred yards away, floundering through the ice, in and out of the water, was a great big bear. She had seen us and was trying to get away. A few yards in front of her were two small cubs—four months old—struggling hard to keep ahead of their mother.
