Part 31 (1/2)
We did not attempt to attack them, however. All our attention was directed to the end of the line. The lance was driven with every opportunity. It seldom missed, but the action was more like spurs to a horse, changing an intended attack upon us to a desperate plunge into the deep, and depriving the walrus of oxygen.
Finally, after a series of spasmodic encounters which lasted fifteen hours, the enraged snout turned blue, the fiery eyes blackened, and victory was ours--not as the result of the knife alone, not in a square fight of brute force, but by the superior cunning of the human animal under the stimulus of hunger.
During all this time we had been drifting. Now, as the battle ended, we were not far from a point about three miles south of our camp. Plenty of safe pack-ice was near. A primitive pulley was arranged by pa.s.sing the line through slits in the walrus' nose and holes in the ice. The great carca.s.s, weighing perhaps three thousand pounds, was drawn onto the ice and divided into portable pieces. Before the sun poured its morning beams over the ice, all had been securely taken ash.o.r.e.
With ample blubber, a camp fire was now made between two rocks by using moss to serve as a wick. Soon, pot after pot of savory meat was voraciously consumed. We ate with a mad, vulgar, insatiable hunger. We spoke little. Between gulps, the huge heap of meat and blubber was cached under heavy rocks, and secured--so we thought--from bears, wolves and foxes.
When eating was no longer possible, sleeping dens were arranged in the little boat, and in it, like other gluttonous animals after an engorgement, we closed our eyes to a digestive sleep. For the time, at least, we had fathomed the depths of gastronomic content, and were at ease with ourselves and with a bitter world of inhuman strife.
At the end of about fifteen hours, a stir about our camp suddenly awoke us. We saw a huge bear nosing about our fireplace. We had left there a walrus joint, weighing about one hundred pounds, for our next meal. We jumped up, all of us, at once, shouting and making a pretended rush. The bear took up the meat in his forepaws and walked off, man-like, on two legs, with a threatening grunt. His movement was slow and cautious, and his grip on the meat was secure. Occasionally he veered about, with a beckoning turn of the head, and a challenging call. But we did not accept the challenge. After moving away about three hundred yards on the sea-ice, he calmly sat down and devoured our prospective meal.
With lances, bows, arrows, and stones in hand, we next crossed a low hill, beyond which was located our precious cache of meat. Here, to our chagrin, we saw two other bears, with heads down and paws busily digging about the cache. We were not fitted for a hand-to-hand encounter. Still, our lives were equally at stake, whether we attacked or failed to attack. Some defense must be made. With a shout and a fiendish rush, we attracted the busy brutes' attention. They raised their heads, turned, and to our delight and relief, grudgingly walked off seaward on the moving ice. Each had a big piece of our meat with him.
Advancing to the cache, we found it absolutely depleted. Many other bears had been there. The snow and the sand was trampled down with innumerable bear tracks. Our splendid cache of the day previous was entirely lost. We could have wept with rage and disappointment. One thing we were made to realize, and that was that life here was now to be a struggle with the bears for supremacy. With little ammunition, we were not at all able to engage in bear fights. So, baffled, and unable to resent our robbery, starvation again confronting us, we packed our few belongings and moved westward over Braebugten Bay to Cape Sparbo.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A THIEF OF THE NORTH]
BULL FIGHTS WITH THE MUSK OX
AN ANCIENT CAVE EXPLORED FOR SHELTER--DEATH BY STARVATION AVERTED BY HAND-TO-HAND ENCOUNTERS WITH WILD ANIMALS
XXVI
TO THE WINTER CAMP AT CAPE SPARBO
As we crossed the big bay to the east of Cape Sparbo, our eyes were fixed on the two huge Archaen rocks which made remarkable landmarks, rising suddenly to an alt.i.tude of about eighteen thousand feet. They appear like two mountainous islands lifted out of the water. On closer approach, however, we found the islands connected with the mainland by low gra.s.sy plains, forming a peninsula. The gra.s.sy lands seemed like promising grounds for caribou and musk ox. The off-lying sea, we also found, was shallow. In this, I calculated, would be food to attract the seal and walrus.
In our slow movement over the land swell of the crystal waters, it did not take long to discover that our conjecture was correct.
Pulling up to a great herd of walrus, we prepared for battle. But the sea suddenly rose, the wind increased, and we were forced to abandon the chase and seek shelter on the nearest land.
We reached Cape Sparbo, on the sh.o.r.es of Jones Sound, early in September. Our dogs were gone. Our ammunition, except four cartridges which I had secreted for use in a last emergency, was gone. Our equipment consisted of a half sledge, a canvas boat, a torn silk tent, a few camp kettles, tin plates, knives, and matches. Our clothing was splitting to shreds.
Cape Sparbo, with its huge walls of granite, was to the leeward. A little bay was noted where we might gain the rocks in quiet water. Above the rocks was a small green patch where we hoped to find a soft resting place for the boat, so that we might place our furs in it and secure shelter from the bitter wind.
When we landed we found to our surprise that it was the site of an old Eskimo village. There was a line of old igloos partly below water, indicating a very ancient time of settlement, for since the departure of the builders of these igloos the coast must have settled at least fifteen feet. Above were a few other ruins.
Shortly after arriving we sought an auspicious place, protected from the wind and cold, where later we might build a winter shelter. Our search disclosed a cave-like hole, part of which was dug from the earth, and over which, with stones and bones, had been constructed a roof which now was fallen in.
The long winter was approaching. We were over three hundred miles from Annoatok, and the coming of the long night made it necessary for us to halt here. We must have food and clothing. We now came upon musk oxen and tried to fell them with boulders, and bows and arrows made of the hickory of our sledge. Day after day the pursuit was vainly followed.
Had it not been for occasional ducks caught with looped lines and sling shots, we should have been absolutely without any food.
By the middle of September, snow and frost came with such frequency that we omitted hunting for a day to dig out the ruins in the cave and cut sod before permanent frost made such work impossible. Bone implements were shaped from skeletons found on sh.o.r.e for the digging. Blown drifts of sand and gravel, with some moss and gra.s.s, were slowly removed from the pit. We found under this, to our great joy, just the underground arrangement which we desired; a raised platform, about six feet long and eight feet wide with suitable wings for the lamp, and foots.p.a.ce, lay ready for us. The pit had evidently been designed for a small family.
The walls, which were about two feet high, required little alteration.
Another foot was added, which leveled the structure with the ground. A good deal of sod was cut and allowed to dry in the sun for use as a roof.
While engaged in taking out the stones and cleaning the dungeon-like excavation, I suddenly experienced a heart-depressing chill when, lifting some debris, I saw staring at me from the black earth a hollow-eyed human skull. The message of death which the weird thing leeringly conveyed was singularly unpleasant; the omen was not good. Yet the fact that at this forsaken spot human hands had once built shelter, or for this thing had constructed a grave, gave me a certain companionable thrill.
On the sh.o.r.e not far away we secured additional whale ribs and with these made a framework for a roof. This was later constructed of moss and blocks of sod. We built a rock wall about the shelter to protect ourselves from storms and bears. Then our winter home was ready. Food was now an immediate necessity. Game was found around us in abundance.