for the dogs from Ungava Post was nearly all
gone.

Akonuk had been instructed by Mr. MacPherson to discover the
whereabouts of these very Eskimos and arrange with two of them to go
on with Bob, after which he and Matuk were to secure from them food
for themselves and their team and return to Ungava.

A good part of the hardtack, boiled pork and venison still remained,
for, as we have seen, the game they had killed on the way had pretty
nearly been enough for their wants. It was fortunate for Bob that they
had these provisions, which required no cooking, for otherwise he
would have had to eat the raw seal as the Eskimos did. They understood
his aversion to doing this, and generously, and at the same time
preferably, perhaps, ate the uncooked meat themselves, and left the
other for him.

March passed into April, and daily the situation grew more desperate,
as the provisions diminished with each sunset. Bob was worried. It
began to look as though he and the Eskimos were doomed to perish on
this miserable island. He was sorry now that he had not waited at
Ungava for the ship, and been more patient, for then he would have
reached Eskimo Bay in safety. At first the Eskimos were very cheerful
and apparently quite unconcerned, and this consoled him somewhat and
made him more confident; but finally even they were showing signs of
restlessness.

Every day he was becoming more familiar with their language and could
understand more and more of their conversation, and he drew from it
and their actions that they considered the situation most critical.
Back of the igloos was a hill a couple of hundred feet high, and many
times each day the men of the camp would climb it and look long and
earnestly to the north, where the heaving billows of Hudson Straits
and the sky line met, broken only here and there by huge icebergs that
towered like great crystal mountains above the water. They were
watching for the ice field that they hoped would drift down with each
tide to bridge the sea that separated them from the distant mainland.

The early April days were growing long and the sun's rays shining more
directly upon the world were gaining power, though not yet enough to
bring the temperature up to zero even at high noon, but enough to
remind the men that winter was aging, and the ice hourly less likely
to come back.

One of the Eskimos, Tuavituk by name, was an Angakok, or conjurer, and
claimed to possess special powers which permit