HE NIGHT

Johnny moved restlessly beneath his furs. He had been dreaming, and in
his dream he had traveled far over scorching deserts, his steed a camel,
his companions Arabs. In his dream he slept by night on the burning
sand, with only a silken canopy above him. In his dream he had awakened
with a sense of impending danger. A prowling tiger had wandered over the
desert, an Arab had proved treacherous--who knows what? The feeling,
after all, had been only of a vague dread.

The dream had wakened him, and now he lay staring into utter darkness
and marveling that the dream was so much like the reality. He was
traveling over barren wastes with a caravan; had been for three days.
But the waste they crossed was a waste of snow. His companions were
natives--who like the Arabs, lived a nomadic life. Their steeds the
swift footed reindeer, their tents the igloos of walrus and reindeer
skins, they roamed over a territory hundreds of miles in extent. To one
of these "fleets of the frozen desert," Johnny had attached himself
after leaving the train.

It had been a wonderful three days that he had spent in his journeying
northward. These Chukches of Siberia, so like the Eskimos of Alaska that
one could distinguish them only by the language they spoke, lived a
romantic life. Johnny had entered into this life with all the zest of
youth. True, he had found himself very awkward in many things and had
been set aside with a growled, "Dezra" (that is enough), many times but
he had persevered and had learned far more about the ways of these
nomads of the great, white north than they themselves suspected.

During those three days Johnny's eyes had been always on the job. He had
not traveled a dozen miles before he had made a thorough study of the
reindeer equipment. This, indeed, was simple enough, but the simpler
one's equipment, the more thorough must be one's knowledge of its
handling. The harness of the deer was made of split walrus skin and
wood. Simple wooden hames, cut to fit the shoulders of the deer and tied
together with a leather thong, took the place of both collar and hames
of other harnesses. From the bottom of these hames ran a broad strap of
leather. This, passing between both the fore and hind legs of the deer,
was fastened to the sled. A second broad strap was passed around the
deer's body directly behind the fore legs. This held the pulling strap
above the ground to prevent the reindeer from stepping over his trace.