Thus a pair of goggles was ready for each when, after a three days’ rest Matuk’s eyes were well enough for him to continue the journey, and by constantly wearing them on days when the sun shone, further danger of snow-blindness was averted.

Two days later, upon emerging from a mountain pass, they suddenly saw stretching far away to the eastward the great ocean ice.  The sight sent the blood tingling through Bob’s veins.  Nearly half the journey from Ungava to Eskimo Bay had been accomplished!

“Th’ coast!  Th’ coast!” shouted Bob.  “Now I’ll be gettin’ home inside a month!”

He began at once to plan the surprise he had in store for the folk and an early trip that he would make over to the Post, when he would tell Bessie about his great “cruise” and hear her say that she was glad to see him back again.  But Fortune does not wait upon human plans and Bob’s fortitude was yet to be tried as it never had been tried before.

That afternoon an Eskimo village of snow igloos was reached.  The Eskimos swarmed out to meet the visitors and gave them a whole-souled welcome, and in an hour they were quite settled for a brief stay in the new quarters.

Akonuk told Bob that now after the dogs, which were very badly spent, had a few days in which to rest, he and Matuk would turn back to Ungava.  They would try to arrange for two more Eskimos with a fresh team to go on with him, but as for themselves, even were the dogs in condition to travel, they did not know the trail beyond this point.

The Eskimos here, like those they had met on the island at Kangeva, were engaged in seal hunting, and none of the men seemed to care to leave their work for a long, hard journey south.  They did not say, however, that they would not go.  When they were asked their answer was: 

“In a little while—­perhaps.”

This was very unsatisfactory to Bob in his anxious frame of mind.  But he had learned that Eskimos must be left to bide their time, and that no amount of coaxing would hurry them, so he tried to await their moods in patience.  He understood the reluctance of the men to go away during one of the best hunting seasons of the year and could not find fault with them for it.

The seals were the mainstay of their living and to lose the hunt might mean privation.  They were in need of the skins for clothing, kayaks and summer tents, and the flesh and blubber for food for themselves and their dogs, and the oil for their stone lamps.

Later in the season they would harpoon the animals from their kayaks, but this was the great harvest time when they killed them by spearing through holes in the ice where the seals came at intervals to breathe, for a seal will die unless it can get fresh air occasionally.  Early in the morning each Eskimo would take up his position near one of these breathing holes, and there, with spear poised, not moving so much as a foot, sometimes for hours at a time, await patiently the appearance of a seal, which, having many similar holes, might not chance to come to this particular one the whole day.