Free The Curse of the Viking Grave by Farley Mowat Page A

freezing and the thaw continued. Peetyuk grew more and more concerned and he led them on at the fastest pace dogs and people could maintain. Their camp at the end of the sixth day was on the shore of a deep bay which ran off to the northwest from the main body of Nuelthin.
    The hard pace had begun to tell on them and they took time only to gulp down a hasty meal before crawling into their robes. The dogs went hungry, for the supplies of caribou meat were almost exhausted and the boys had seen no deer all the way up the lake.
    The spring-like weather seemed determined to persist. There was only a light frost that night and the morning sun rose white and hot in a cloudless sky. Once more Peetyuk got them moving almost before everyone was fully awake. “Sun too hot,” he told them with a worried frown. “Maybe little rivers break ice already.”
    As they drove up the bay (which now swung almost due west) sled and carioles threw up a steady spray, for the thaw water on top of the ice was several inches deep in places.
    â€œGood thing we have the canoes,” Jamie remarked to Awasin, who was driving alongside. “Another day like this and we’ll be using them. Either that or we’ll have to teach the dogs to swim.”
    Awasin was about to offer a joke in reply when he saw that Peetyuk had turned and was running back toward them, holding up his hand to warn Angeline to stop. In a moment the other teams had drawn up to Peetyuk’s sled.
    â€œGet guns quick,” he said urgently. “Around point, tuktu-mie —many deer. Angeline, you stay. Keep dogs quiet.”
    Slipping their rifles out of their deerskin cases, the boys ran swiftly for the cover of a long, low point of rock. When they reached the point they crawled slowly up to the crest and peered over it.
    Ten feet below them, and not fifty yards away, the black ice of the bay almost disappeared under a flowing tide of caribou. Perhaps a thousand animals were in sight, strung out in long, twisting skeins, crossing the bay from south to north. They moved slowly and the boys saw that they were all does—most of them with swollen bellies, for the fawning time was almost on them.
    Jamie and Awasin were so fascinated by the spectaclethat they did not even think of raising their guns. As a dozen skeins of deer crossed in front of them, others descended to the bay ice from the southern hills. Away to the north they could see that the rising hills in that direction were lined and veined with countless lines of caribou. Each skein—and some consisted of as many as a hundred animals—seemed to be led by an old doe, perhaps one who had made the thousand-mile spring migration a score of times before.
    â€œNot wait all day,” Peetyuk said impatiently. “We also must go fast north. I shoot now.”
    He eased his rifle up to his shoulder, took quick aim and fired. The flat crash of the shot echoed over the ice, but the mass of the deer seemed to pay little heed to it. One barren doe sank to her knees, struggled to rise again, and then fell over on her side. The rest of the animals in the file behind swerved slightly and passed by her. Here and there a few does halted for a moment, thrust their heads out in the direction of the point, snorted, and continued on their way.
    â€œWhen does go north to fawn nothing stop them,” Peetyuk explained. “Not afraid wolf, people. Not stop for anything.”
    He proved the point a few minutes later. Having returned to their teams, the boys and Angeline drove right into the deer herds. The hungry dogs nearly went mad. Jamie was caught off guard and lost control of his team, which went belting across the ice at full gallop, leaving him running far astern and bellowing uselessly at them to stop.
    But the deer simply spread out to let the dogs go past, and when the team turned in pursuit of a single animal, the caribou only sprinted far enough to out-distance their pursuers before