The cinema : 1952 (1952)

THE STORY OF GOMOCK THE ESKIMO 107 quick!' I said. 'Twavee!' said everyone. We could hardly hear for the howling of our dogs. We had three sledges of dogs, twelve dogs to each sledge. They were good dogs. We had taken care to feed them well, and now they howled to be off. In the beginning the ice was rough for the first big wind of the winter had jammed the ice hard against the coast and piled it up many times to the height I stand. It was heavy going, but at last we worked out of it without hurting our sledges and we got smooth ice. We travelled fast on this smooth ice for the wind had packed the snow hard, and our feet did not sink and the dogs' feet moved so fast my eyes would swim to look at them. We never had so little use for the long whip their tails never fell, their traces never touched the snow. We only rested twice to untangle the traces and to clear the ice from between the toes of the dogs' feet. There was good hunting too — my leader dog was always turning his head, so many were the breathing holes of the seal, but 'We must not stop,' I said : 'We must not stop,' said my wife — 'Ae,' and everyone agreed. At last the long shadows in the snow grew blue like the sky. The shining left the edges of the ice and the long shadows drew away like the edge of an ice field moving slowly out from the land. Still the traces of the dogs did not touch the ground. There was not much light from the stars and we stumbled. When it did rise there was only half a moon. It did not give us much light, and we stumbled and there were wails from the dogs and that was because we were now truly tired and it took much shaking to keep our children av/ake. 'Tiamak,5 I said. 'We will stop.' ' Ae,' said everyone. And the dogs sank into the snow, too tired to fight, and they buried their noses between their paws and let the snow-smoke drift over them, and while our women sat in the shelter of our sledges and nursed the smalL