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

turning purposefully north at a sedate trot. Jamie’s dogs now tried to run in all directions at once and their frantic efforts soon resulted in such a tangle of traces that they and the cariole were brought to a standstill. When Jamie panted up to them he found the lines so fouled that it took him twenty minutes of yelling, thumping and sweating to get the dogs disentangled. Meantime Awasin and Peetyuk had butchered and quartered the barren doe, flung the meat on their sleds, and driven on to join him.
    Peetyuk shook his head sadly as he looked down at the tangled harness. “Maybe you be good driver some day,” he said. “ Some white men learn, but take long time. Got white beard by then.”
    Too winded to reply, Jamie could do nothing but grunt disgustedly as Peetyuk’s sled swept past, heading toward the foot of the long bay.

 
    CHAPTER 8
    Race Against Time
    T HE NORTHWEST BAY OF NUELTHIN ended in a snow-choked valley which wound away to the westward between high, barren hills. Without slackening pace, Peetyuk led the teams onto the ice of a river flowing out of this valley. The surface was rough and pitted and in places it had sagged, allowing thaw pools a foot in depth to form on top of it.
    They had gone several miles when Peetyuk halted the train and went carefully forward, testing the ice with the butt of his rifle. He came back in a few minutes looking very worried.
    â€œRapid run under ice,” he told the others. “Melt ice from under. Too thin here. Must go shore.”
    â€œWe’ll never get anywhere along the shore,” Jamie protested. “The drifts in this valley must be ten feet deep, and the snow’s so soft a butterfly would sink in it.”
    â€œMaybe wrong river anyway,” Peetyuk replied hesitantly. “This one go west, and big. River we want go northwest, and not very big. Should go out over country, not up big valley. Maybe I too much hurry. Maybe we go back and look again.”
    It was a depressing prospect, but there was really noalternative. They turned the sled and carioles about, and two hours later they reached the river mouth and were again on the bay ice. Here they halted while Peetyuk climbed a hill and scanned the north shore of the bay. When he scrambled down to join the others, his worried frown had been replaced by his usual grin.
    â€œI find!” he told them jubilantly, and led them off toward a little cove concealed behind a string of islands. They did not see the river they were seeking until they turned a final bend.
    â€œHow did you ever find it, Pete?” Jamie asked.
    â€œNot see river, Jamie. See that… ” and he pointed to the crest of one of the masking islands. On the skyline stood a pile of stones set one on top of the other and no more than three feet high. To a casual eye the pile looked like a natural object, for the whole of the Barrenland plains are sprinkled thickly and haphazardly with jumbled rocks deposited by the retreating glaciers of the ancient past.
    â€œHe is inukok —stoneman,” Peetyuk explained. “Eskimo make him. Make many inukok all over country. Show way to go for other Eskimo. I think Kakumee make that one. Got right road now.”
    Although the afternoon was growing old, Peetyuk would not let them stop even long enough to boil the kettle. Wearily the dogs took up the strain, and just as wearily the three boys and the girl plodded on.
    This new river was not much more than a shallow stream winding its way up from the bay in a northwesterlydirection over open, rolling plains criss-crossed with long gravel ridges completely free of snow. Innumerable small ponds and lakes lay in the snow-filled valleys, and the edges of these lakes had already thawed, leaving a narrow ring of open water between their shores and the rotting ice.
    Mikkiku, or Little River, which was what Peetyuk called it, offered hard traveling. Not only was its ice rotten, but it was studded with