Are the
cattle?" in the Klondike, "How is your claim panning out?" and in
New York, "How are you getting on with your novel?" On Great Slave
Lake you say, "Where are the Caribou?" The Indians could not tell;
they had seen none for weeks, but there was still much ice in the
east end of the lake which kept them from investigating. They had
plenty of dried Caribou meat but were out of tea and tobacco. I had
come prepared for this sort of situation, and soon we had a fine
stock of dried venison.
These were the Indians whose abandoned dogs made so much trouble
for us in the days that followed.
At 4 P. M. of 23d of July we were stopped by a long narrow floe of
broken ice. Without consulting me the crew made for the shore.
It seemed they were full of fears: "What if they should get caught
in that floe, and drift around for days? What if a wind should
arise (it had been glassy calm for a week)? What if they could',
not get back?" etc., etc.
Preble and I climbed a hill for a view. The floe was but half a
mile wide, very loose, with frequent lanes.
"Preble, is there any reason why we should not push through this
floe using poles to move the cakes?"
"None whatever."
On descending, however, I found the boys preparing to camp for "a
couple of days," while the ice melted or drifted away somewhere.
So I said, "You get right into this boat now and push off; we can
easily work our way through." They made no reply, simply looked
sulkier than ever, and proceeded to start a fire for meal No. 5.
"Weeso," I said, "get into your place and tell your men to follow."
The old man looked worried and did nothing, He wanted to do right,
but he was in awe of his crew.
Then did I remember how John MacDonald settled the rebellion on
the river.
"Get in there," I said to Preble and Billy. "Come on, Weeso." We
four jumped into the boat and proceeded to push off with all the
supplies.
Authorities differ as to the time it took for the crew to make up
their minds. Two seconds and eleven seconds are perhaps the extremes
of estimate. They came jumping aboard as fast as they could.
We attacked the floe, each with a lodge-pole; that is, Billy and
Preble did in the bow, while Freesay and I did at the rear; and
in thirty-five minutes we had pushed through and were sailing the
open sea.
The next day we had the same scene repeated with less intensity,
in this case because Freesay sided with me.
