men who sported with death daily. But I've never seen a stranger
sight than strong men creepin' out of the snow-banked hovels where
they'd been for four long months, half-starved and three-quarters sick,
to actually feel Jarvis to make sure that he was real.

"Many and many a man reckoned it was delirium to think that help had
come. It seemed beyond belief. An' when Jarvis told 'em that four
hundred reindeer were only a day's journey away, an' that there was
fresh meat enough for all--old seadogs that hadn't had any sort of
feeling for years, just broke down and cried like children.

"Then, while the excitement was at its height, and everybody was asking
questions at the same time, a grizzled old whaler, who had been whalin'
for half a century an' more, I guess, half-blind with scurvy, crept
forward and laid his hand on Jarvis' shoulder.

"'Boys,' he said in a quavering voice, 'this ain't just one man, it's
the whole United States.'"

CHAPTER VIII

THE BELCHING DEATH OF A VOLCANO

The whaler's story of the great Overland Expedition set Eric questioning
about the work of the Coast Guard with the reindeer. He learned that,
partly as a result of his handling of the trip, the government had
selected Lieutenant Bertholf to make an exploration of northern Siberia
for the purpose of importing Tunguse reindeer, which were reported to be
bigger and better fitted for Alaska than the Lapp reindeer. He found out
how over 200 head of the larger species had been successfully imported,
and a couple of days later had a very vivid demonstration of the fact in
seeing an Eskimo trot by, riding a Tunguse reindeer like a saddle horse.

The more the boy saw of the Eskimo, too, the more he learned to value
their race strength. It was true that they were dirty and that their
houses smelt horribly. But, after all, Eric reasoned, it is a little
hard to keep the habit of baths in a country where, during six months
in the year, a man would freeze solid in a bath like a fly in a piece of
amber. The Eskimo's indifference to smells, moreover, he learned to
understand one day, quite suddenly. He was pacing up and down the deck
with the whaler a day or two before the _Bear_ reached Point Barrow.

"You're always worryin' over those smells," Joey had said to him.
"You've lived in a city, haven't you?"

"Nearly all my life," the boy replied.

"Have you ever been in a city what wasn't noisy with street cars, an'
wagons, an' automobile ho