My Eskimo Friends (1924)

Ill The gales and cold kept on; the last of the big military tents housing our food and gear was stripped into ribbons. One black night we were awakened by the pandemonium of fighting dogs. Tookalook’s old master dog was chewing at a big sealed tin of bully beef, tearing it open, strips of tin jammed between his bleeding fangs. Old boots, whips, or harness, and even a pup (Tookalook lost three in as many days) were delicacies for them these times. On the twelfth day was ended the biggest drifter of the year. The cabin was snowed up to the roof — the dogs scampered over it. Wetalltok’s hut was completely buried; a shaft straight down through the snow marked its entrance. The forlorn Laddie was drifted bulwarks high. “We may get good weather now,” was old Tookalook’s observation as he scanned the brick-red sunset and pointed to the stars outcropping above it in the steely sky. “ Wetalltok, I think, will now get his chance for seals.” Bill and I were long since busy with supper-making when old Tookalook popped his head in through the door and asked me for my “big eye” (telescope), saying that Wetalltok’s wife from the lookout hill saw the black specks of a team coming in toward us. Tookalook wondered if by some rare fortune it could be Wetalltok. It was not long before the din of knocking brought us outof-doors to where on the lookout every man, woman, and 6s