l him back
without stopping the others, and give him a cuffing. This, however, was
seldom done, as the driver could touch any member of the team with the
point of his whip. The handle of this terrible instrument was not much
more than eighteen or twenty inches long, but the lash was upwards of
six yards! Near the handle it was about three inches broad, being thick
cords of walrus-hide platted; it gradually tapered towards the point,
where it terminated in a fine line of the same material. While driving,
the long lash of this whip trails on the snow behind the sledge, and by
a peculiar sleight of hand its serpentine coils can be brought up for
instant use.

No backwoodsman of Kentucky was ever more perfect in the use of his
pea-rifle or more certain of his aim than was Annatock with his
murderous whip. He was a dead shot, so to speak. He could spread
intense alarm among the dogs by causing the heavy coil to whiz over them
within a hair's-breadth of their heads; or he could gently touch the
extreme tip of the ear of a skulker, to remind him of his duty to his
master and his comrades; or, in the event of the warning being
neglected, he could bring the point down on his flank with a crack like
a pistol-shot, that would cause skin and hair to fly, and spread yelping
dismay among the entire pack. And how they did run! The sledge seemed
a mere feather behind the powerful team. They sprang forth at full
gallop, now bumping over a small hummock or diverging to avoid a large
one, anon springing across a narrow gap in the ice, or sweeping like the
snowdrift over the white plain, while the sledge sprang and swung and
bounded madly on behind them; and Annatock shouted as he flourished his
great whip in the excitement of their rapid flight, and Peetoot laughed
with wild delight, and Edith sat clasping her hands tightly over her
knees--her hood thrown back, her fair hair blown straight out by the
breeze, her cheeks flushed, her lips parted, and her eyes sparkling with
emotion as they whirled along in their mad and swift career.

In half an hour the low village was out of sight, and in half an hour
more they arrived at the place where a number of the Esquimaux were
scattered in twos and threes over the ice, searching for seal-holes, and
preparing to catch them.

"What is that man doing?" cried Edith, pointing to an Esquimau who,
having found a hole, had built a semicircular wall of snow round it to
protect him from the ligh