This is moulded on the runners with the hands in a
thick, broad, semicircular shape, and freezes as hard as glass. Then
its irregularities are planed smooth, and it slips easily over the
snow and ice.
Finally, all the preparations were completed, and Bob looked forward
in a high state of excited anticipation to the great journey of new
experiences and adventures that lay before him to be crowned by the
joy of his home-coming.
But a thousand miles separated Bob from his home and danger and death
lurked by the way. Human plans and day-dreams are not considered by
the Providence that moulds man's fortune, and it is a blessed thing
that human eyes cannot look into the future.
XIX
AT THE MERCY OF THE WIND
In the starlight of Monday morning Akonuk and Matuk harnessed their
twelve big dogs. Fierce creatures these animals were, scarcely less
wild than the wolves that prowled over the hills behind the Fort, of
which they were the counterpart, and more than once the Eskimos had to
beat them with the butt end of a whip to stop their fighting and bring
them to submission.
The load had already been lashed upon the komatik and the mud on the
runners rubbed over with lukewarm water which had frozen into a thin
glaze of ice that would slip easily over the snow.
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