In travel, in spite of this precaution, the deer did often step over the
trace. In such cases, the driver had but to seize the draw strap and
give it a quick pull, sending the sled close to the deer's heels. This
gave the draw straps slack and the deer stepped over the trace again to
his proper place.

The sleds were made of a good quality of hard wood procured from the
river forests or from the Russians, and fitted with shoes of steel or of
walrus ivory cut in thin strips. The sleds were built short, broad and
low. This prevented many a spill, for as Johnny soon learned, the
reindeer is a cross between a burro and an ox in his disposition, and,
once he has scented a rich bed of mosses and lichens, on which he feeds,
he takes on the strength and speed of an ox stampeding for a water hole
in the desert, and the stubbornness of a burro drawn away from his
favorite thistle.

The deer were driven by a single leather strap; the old, old jerk strap
of the days of ox teams. Johnny had demanded at once the privilege of
driving but he had made a sorry mess of it. He had jerked the strap to
make the deer go more slowly. This really being the signal for greater
speed, the deer had bolted across the tundra, at last spilling Johnny
and his load of Chukche plunder over a cutbank. This procedure did not
please the Chukches, and Johnny was not given a second opportunity to
drive. He was compelled to trot along beside the sleds or, back to back
with one of his fellow travelers, to ride over the gleaming whiteness
that lay everywhere.

It was at such times as these that Johnny had ample opportunity to study
the country through which they passed. Lighted as it was by a glorious
moon, it presented a grand and fascinating panorama. To the right lay
the frozen ocean, its white expanse cut here and there by a pool of salt
water pitchy black by contrast with the ice. To the left lay the
mountains extending as far as the eye could see, with their dark purple
shadows and triangles of light and seeming but another sea, that
tempest-tossed and terrible had been congealed by the bitter northern
blasts.

When twelve hours of travel had been accomplished, and it had been
proposed that they camp for the night, Johnny had been quite free to
offer his assistance in setting up the tents. In this he had been even
less successful than in his performance with the reindeer. He had set
the igloo poles wrong end up and, when these had been righted, had