With the
winter comes the all-pervading snow, and the keen, bracing north-west
wind, the rosy cheek and the frozen nose; but with it also comes rugged
health and a steady diet of walrus meat.
CHAPTER VII.
RELICS.
From this point onward our march was attended with the most profitable
results. On the evening of the 4th of June we met a young man, named
Adlekok, who, during the previous summer, had found a new cairn erected
by white men near Pfeffer River, which had never been seen by any other
Inuits. Near by were three graves and a tent place in which he found a
pair of wire-gauze snow-goggles, which we bought from him. This
information seemed of sufficient importance to be followed up
immediately before any other natives should find and rob the cairn.
Consequently the next day Lieutenant Schwatka and I took a light
sled, with Toolooah to drive and Adlekok as guide, and visited the
spot. We took a day's rations with us, to use in case we did not get
back that night, and started with a head wind and storm that confined
our view to the immediate vicinity of the sledge. Our guide, however,
took us through this trackless waste of smooth ice, a distance of over
twenty-five miles, without deviation from the direct line, with no
landmarks or sun to steer by; but on he went with the unerring
instinct of a dog, until we struck the land at the western banks of
Pfeffer River.
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