aimed Kit.

"Nonsense!"

"Bet you don't dare to let one of them crack at you!"

"I wouldn't let one of them snap at my back, for fear he would hit my
ears or hands instead; but I had just as lief let him crack at my leg
below my knee, under my boot-leg, as not."

"Agreed!"

Kit ran to get old _Shug-la-wina_ with his whip.

"Bet my musket against yours that you can't stand three cracks on your
boot-leg!" laughed Wade.

"I take it!" cried Donovan.

In a few minutes Kit came back with the old Esquimau and his whip.
Signs were made; and Donovan raised his foot on a rock, exposing his
boot-leg. The veteran Husky began to _yeh-yeh!_ He understood.
Standing off about twenty-five feet, he gathered the lash up; then,
swinging the handle around his head, let the long thong go circling
around him like a black snake. Faster and faster revolved the black
gyres,--twenty times, I have no doubt. Presently he fetched a snap.
The black thong shot out like lightning. _Thut!_ A bit of the leather
flew up, spinning in the air. Donovan caught away his leg with a
profane exclamation. We crowded round. There was a hole in the
boot-leg!

"Gracious!" exclaimed Weymouth.

Don jerked off his boot. On the calf of his leg there was a mark about
half an inch wide, and an inch or more in length, red as blood, and
rapidly puffing up.

"Have another?" demanded Wade.

"Not much! One will do for me!"

We naturally picked up a good many words of their language; though of
its structure--if it have any--we learned little. Other anxieties
occupied our minds so fully, that we were not very attentive scholars.
Like the Indians of our Territories, the Esquimaux seemed much
addicted to running a whole sentence into a single word, or what
sounded like it, of immense length. These sentence-words we could make
very little of. But of their detached words, standing for familiar
things, I add a vocabulary from such as I can now call to mind:--

Pillitay, Give. Give me something.
Igloo, A hut.
Igloo-ee, A hut-keeper.
Wau-ve, An egg.
Mickee, A dog.
Tuk-tuk, A reindeer.
Muck-tu, A caribou.
Tuck-tu, Seal-blubber.
Nenook, A bear.
Chymo, Trade; barter.
Eigh! Stop! Hold up! Get out!
Karrack,