with men,
women, children, and dogs, and how they felt thankful to be able to
sleep anywhere and anyhow, without being frozen. All this, and a great
deal more, we are compelled to skip over here, and leave it unwillingly,
to the vivid imagination of our reader.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

THE HUNTING PARTY--RECKLESS DRIVING--A DESPERATE ENCOUNTER WITH A
WALRUS, ETCETERA.

Late in the day, by the bright light of the stars, the sailors and the
Esquimaux left the snow-huts of the village, and, travelling out to
seaward on the floes, with dogs and sledges, lances and spears, advanced
to do battle with the walrus.

The northern lights were more vivid than usual, making the sky quite
luminous, and there was a sharp freshness in the air, which, while it
induced the hunters to pull their hoods more tightly round their faces,
also sent their blood careering more briskly through their veins, as
they drove swiftly over the ice in the Esquimaux sledges.

"Did ye ever see walrusses a'fore, Davie!" enquired Buzzby who sat
beside Summers on the leading sledge.

"None but what I've seed on this voyage."

"They're remarkable creeturs," rejoined Buzzby, slapping his hand on his
thigh. "I've seed many a one in my time, an I can tell ye, lad, they're
ugly customers. They fight like good 'uns, and give the Esquimaux a
deal o' trouble to kill them--they do."

"Tell me a story about 'em, Buzzby--do, like a good chap," said Davie
Summers, burying his nose in the skirts of his hairy garment to keep it
warm. "You're a capital hand at a yarn, now, fire away."

"A story, lad; I don't know as how I can exactly tell ye a story, but
I'll give ye wot they calls a hanecdote. It wos about five years ago,
more or less, I wos out in Baffin's Bay, becalmed off one o' the Eskimo
settlements, when we wos lookin' over the side at the lumps of ice
floatin' past, up got a walrus not very far offshore, and out went half
a dozen kayaks, as they call the Eskimo men's boats, and they all sot on
the beast at once. Well, it wos one o' the brown walrusses, which is
always the fiercest; and the moment he got the first harpoon he went
slap at the man that threw it; but the fellow backed out, and then a cry
was raised to let it alone, as it wos a brown walrus. One young Eskimo,
howsiver, would have another slap at it and went so close that the brute
charged, upset the kayak, and ripped the man up with his tusks. Seein'
this, the other Eskimos made a dash