“No,” answered Nannook. “It is far and you are only a boy.”
Ahmow begged so hard that at last his father said he might go.
“But it will be a long cold ride, and there are often bears and wolves on the island.”
So Ahmow dressed himself in his new reindeer suit that his mother had made, and pulled his sealskin cap well over his ears.
He helped his father get ready for the long, cold journey. First they put a thick coating of ice on the sledge-runners. Then they filled two sealskin bags with food and water.
They called the dogs and harnessed them to the sledge. There were eight of them, and they could run like the wind.
Last of all Ahmow crawled into the house, bade his mother good-by, and brought out the long whip.
Nannook wrapped his little boy in a bearskin, cracked his whip over the dogs, and away they flew over the ice. Oh, how happy Ahmow was!