are off with a jump, full gallop. For
half an hour or so they go like an express train, then they sober down
to a more steady rate of speed, an' finally, when they are tired,
they'll drop into a walk. Jarvis' deer played him a nasty trick on this
trip."

"What was that?" asked the boy.

"It was on the way to Point Rodney. It was blowing a living gale an' the
snow was blinding. In the dark Jarvis' deer wandered from the trail, got
entangled in a lot of driftwood on the beach, which was half covered
over with snow, took fright, an' finally wound up by running the sled
full speed agin a stump, breakin' the harness, draggin' the line out of
Jarvis' hand an' disappearin' in the darkness an' the flying snow.
Luckily Jarvis knew enough not to try and follow him. He stayed right
there."

"All night?" queried the boy.

"Luckily, he didn't have to," the other answered. "Two hours later, a
search party found him. They dug a hole in the snow an' camped right
there.

"The next day they only made five miles. The storm was so bad that the
man breakin' trail couldn't stand up an' had to crawl on his hands and
knees. Even the reindeer wouldn't travel in a straight line, wantin' to
turn their tails to the blast. This would have taken the party straight
out to sea over the ice. After three days' delay, Jarvis insisted on
travel, an' he nearly had a mutiny on his hands. But he put it through.
He's one of the kind of men that always keeps on going!

"Then came the time for diplomacy. Jarvis had to persuade 'Charlie'
Artisarlook, just on his say-so, to give up his whole herd, his entire
wealth, promisin' that the same number of deer should be returned. As a
small village had grown up around this herd of Artisarlook's--which made
him quite the most prominent member of his race for miles around--an' as
they depended entirely for their food and clothing on the reindeer herd,
it was like askin' a city to empty its houses of everything for the sake
of men they'd never even seen. I think it says a lot for the Eskimos
that they agreed."

"It's bully!"

"That's me, too. It's something to give up every penny you own merely on
a promise that it will be returned, to leave your wife, family an'
neighbors starving, an' go eight hundred miles from home in an Arctic
winter over a terrible road to help a party of white men in distress.

"When Artisarlook agreed, Jarvis and he went on ahead, leaving Surgeon
Call to follow with the herd to Cape Pr