though I confess I did not sit down to the
feast with any pleasurable anticipation, as the men said that they
found the remains of a recently devoured seal in Bruin's "tum." I had
an agreeable surprise. The meat was fibrous and a little tough, but it
was quite good--a vast improvement on the sea-birds which are so
highly valued in the local commissariat.

[Illustration: IT WAS HIS LAST BULLET]

The Prophet has a vivid idea of the processes going on in the heads of
animals. He says that up to fifteen years ago there were bears
innumerable "in the country." "And one day, miss," he explained, "the
whole crew of them gets their anchors and leaves in a body." To hear
him one would imagine that at a concerted signal the bears came out
of their burrows and shook the dust of the land from their feet.

The Eskimos toll the seals. They lie on the ice and wave their legs in
the air, and the seals, curious animals, approach to discover the
nature of the phenomenon, and are forthwith dispatched. One Eskimo of
a histrionic temperament decided to "go one better." He went out to
the ice edge, climbed into his sealskin sleeping-bag, and waved his
legs, as per stage directions. We are not informed whether the device
would have proved a successful decoy to the seals, for before any had
been lured within range, another Innuit, having seen the sealskin legs
gesticulating on the ice edge, naturally mistook them for the real
thing, fired with regrettable accuracy, and went out to find a dead
cousin.

The story is the only deterrent I have from dressing in my white
Russian hareskin coat, and sitting in the graveyard some dusky
evening. The people claim that the place is haunted. I have never met
a "Yoho" and never expect to, but I would dearly love to see how
others act when they think they have. Only the suspicion that they
would "plump for safety," and fire the inevitable muzzle-loader at my
white garment, keeps me from making the experiment _in corpore vile_.

The birds and the seals and the bears and white foxes coming south on
the moving ice are signs of spring. There is a stir in the air as if
the people as well sensed that the back of the long winter was broken.
How it has flown! You cannot fancy my sensations of lonesomeness when
I think that I shall never spend another in this country. You cannot
describe or analyze the lure of the land and its people, but it is
there, and grips you. I have grown to love it, and you will welcom