ith anxiety the increasing moderation of the
atmosphere. That was not well. When the cold relented the hill
spirits released the glaciers.

With frantic eagerness they explored the valley. The green grass
whereon Ootah had seen the splendid animals grazing months before was
covered with ice. There was no sign of the _ahmingmah_. Ootah's heart
sank. He felt very much like weeping.

Suddenly the dogs began to sniff the air and bark hungrily.

"_Ahmingmah_!" Koolotah cried, joyfully.

Ootah released the team--the dogs made a misty black streak in their
dash over the ice. The men followed.

In the shelter of a cave they found five musk oxen. They were huddled
together and half numb with cold. They roared dully as the howling
dogs assaulted them, and rushed lumberingly from the cave into the
moonlight. Five great black hulks, with mighty manes of coarse hair,
they ambled over the ice for a space of five hundred feet and then,
surrounded by the dogs, assembled in a circle, their backs together,
their heads facing the howling dogs. Thus they were prepared to
protect themselves from attack.

The dogs, frantic with hunger, made fierce rushes at the animals. Now
and then, as the dogs dashed forward, one of the great beasts would
charge, its head lowered, and the dogs would leap backward into the air
and scatter. Then turning, the animal would rush back to its
companions as fast as its numbed legs could carry it.

Through the white vapor of their breath, which half hid their great
horned heads, Ootah could see the eyes of the musk-oxen--they were
greenish and phosphorescent. Occasionally the creatures roared
sullenly, but the fight was less exciting than it would have been had
they been less torpid from hunger and cold.

Ootah called away the dogs, and raised his gun, one which Olafaksoah,
in payment for the five sledloads of walrus blubber which he
confiscated after Ootah's flight to the mountains, had left with a
generous supply of ammunition with a companion. Ootah now realized the
value of the payment which he had scorned.

There was a yellow flash in the moonlight--a mighty roar went up. The
dogs, with a cyclonic dash, swooped upon the fallen monster, snapping
viciously at it as it roared in its death agony. Frightened, the other
four scattered--one rushed into the shelter of the cave, the other
three, dispersing, soon became diminishing black specks in the
moonlight. The dogs would have followed,