Kroo was indeed looking anxious, and Harry hastened to imitate him so far as he could. He held his pipe up to the sun, pointed at Kroo, and recited with all the elocutionary power he could muster:—
“Hickory, dickory, dock,
The mouse ran up the clock,
The clock struck one,
And down she run,
Hickory, dickory, dock.”
He looked at Joe with nervous eye as he did this, but Joe was solemn as a deacon, never moving a muscle. Kroo and the other villagers seemed much impressed with the Mother Goose rhyme, no doubt thinking it an incantation of much power, and the incident was happily ended with the transfer of the pipe and another hearty handshake.
Thus they bade good-by to their friends, and with Harluk in the lead and the dogs tugging at the loaded sled, took their way down the coast on the ice. For the first few days travel was not difficult, and they made good progress. They were inured to Arctic weather, and the mildness of spring and the thought that they were headed toward home, even though defeated and impoverished, filled them with exhilaration. In three days they made something over sixty miles, taking them well below Point Lay and promising an exceptionally quick trip. The Arctic pack was still glued to the shore, and the travel over it was safe. After the third night’s sleep, however, they found an unexpected obstacle. The river known to the Eskimos as the Kukpowrak enters the sea here, flowing far from the interior and flooded by the spring thaw, a rushing torrent. It was impossible to ford this river, and its warmer waters had opened the sea ice for a broad space as far out as the eye could see. It effectually blocked their further passage. Harluk wished, Eskimo fashion, to sit down by the bank of this river and wait till the snows were fully melted. Then the floods would fall as suddenly as they had risen, and they would be able to ford it.
“How long will that be?” asked Joe.
Harluk meditated, and then answered with the vague and irritating “Ticharro pejuk.”