mous supply: a
little milk, eggs, birch-bark bread, sometimes salmon, never any meat;
and yet they are hardy men."

"It's a matter of organization," answered the doctor, "and one which I
can't explain. Still, I fancy that the second or third generation of
Norwegians, carried to Greenland, would end by feeding themselves in
the Greenland way. And we too, my friends, if we were to remain in
this lovely country, would get to live like the Esquimaux, not to say
like gluttons."

"Dr. Clawbonny," said Bell, "it makes me hungry to talk in this way."

"It doesn't make me," answered Altamont; "it disgusts me rather, and
makes me dislike seal's flesh. But I fancy we shall have an
opportunity to try the experiment. If I'm not mistaken, I see some
living body down there on the ice."

"It's a walrus," shouted the doctor; "forward silently!"

[Illustration]

Indeed, the animal was within two hundred feet of the hunters; he was
stretching and rolling at his ease in the pale rays of the sun. The
three men separated so as to surround him and cut off his retreat; and
they approached within a few fathoms' lengths of him, hiding behind
the hummocks, and then fired. The walrus rolled over, still full of
strength; he crushed the ice in his attempts to get away; but Altamont
attacked him with his hatchet, and succeeded in cutting his dorsal
fins. The walrus made a desperate resistance; new shots finished him,
and he remained stretched lifeless on the ice-field stained with his
blood. He was a good-sized animal, being nearly fifteen feet long from
his muzzle to the end of his tail, and he would certainly furnish many
barrels of oil. The doctor cut out the most savory parts of the flesh,
and he left the corpse to the mercies of a few crows, which, at this
season of the year, were floating through the air. The night began to
fall. They thought of returning to Fort Providence; the sky had become
perfectly clear, and while waiting for the moon to rise, the splendor
of the stars was magnificent.

"Come, push on," said the doctor, "it's growing late; to be sure,
we've had poor luck; but as long as we have enough for supper, there's
no need of complaining. Only let's take the shortest way and try not
to get lost; the stars will help us."

But yet in countries where the North Star shines directly above the
traveller's head, it is hard to walk by it; in fact, when the north is
directly in the zenith, it is hard to determine the other cardinal