n.
It makes a thin shell, an' dogs, sleds an' everybody goes through an'
brings up on the solid ice below.

"As a matter of fact, it put Jarvis' teams down an' out; most of his
dogs were bleeding at every step from ice-cuts in the cushions of their
feet. He had trouble with the natives, too. Two of them got violent
colds, an' they were no use for traveling."

"Seems queer to think of Eskimos catching cold," said Eric; "now if it
had been Lieutenant Jarvis, I wouldn't have been surprised."

"There's nothing as tough as a white man," said the whaler. "If you look
up stories of explorers you'll always find it's the natives that get
used up first."

"Why, do you suppose?"

"A white man is more used to putting out energy. After all, natives are
lazy, an' a white man on an exploring expedition or a rescue is pushing
natives faster than they have ever been used to going."

"He's taking the same trouble himself!" objected the boy.

"Sure, he is. But then, in one way or another, he's pushing all the
time. Jarvis told me that the next two or three days were bad. Off Point
Romanoff the ice-crush was piled high an' they had to lift the sleds
over the hummocks for two days on end. A snowstorm came up in the middle
of it, an' I guess it was touch and go until they made Pikmiktallik,
nine miles further on. Next day, late in the afternoon, they drove into
St. Michael's, havin' covered three hundred and seventy-five miles in
twenty-one days, with only one day's rest.

"The story of how Jarvis got teams at St. Michael's and Unalaklik is a
yarn all by itself. Anyway, he got 'em, and on January fifth left
Unalaklik, by a mountainous trail along the shore. A wild bit of road
delayed 'em before they reached Norton's Bay. On the further shore, I
guess they had real trouble. Jarvis told me--and the phrase has stuck in
my mind ever since--that the ice looked like a cubist picture. I've seen
stuff like that, but I never had to travel over it."

"It sounds awful," said Eric.

"It's worse than that," was the reply. "I don't want any of that sort of
travel in my dish, thanks. Well, to go on. It was right there that
Jarvis' an' Bertholf's trail divided. Orders had been left at Unalaklik
for Bertholf to go on an' meet Jarvis at Cape Blossom, on the north side
of Kotzebue Sound, with a thousand pounds of provisions."

"How could he catch up with Jarvis with a load like that," queried the
boy, "when the first part of the expedition was tra