One evening near the end of February Bobby announced, as he entered the
cabin after giving the dogs their daily feed:
"There's only enough seal meat left to last the dogs a week. I'll have
to go to the _sena_ and kill some more."
"You do not know how to do that kind of hunting," objected Abel. "It is
not like hunting seals from a boat, or like spearing them through their
breathing holes in the ice. Feed the dogs only once every two days, and
perhaps before the meat is gone my foot will be strong enough for me to
go to the _sena_."
"I was there with you last year," Bobby insisted. "Jimmy will go with
me. He has been to the _sena_ with you twice, and he knows how. We will
be careful."
And at last Abel surrendered, for he could not long deny Bobby any
reasonable thing that the lad set his heart upon, and after all Bobby
had proved himself a good and careful hunter; and they needed seals.
Skipper Ed had not kept dogs since the slaughter of his team in the year
of famine. He hunted and trapped more after the manner of the Indian
than the Eskimo, going long journeys inland on snowshoes, and now Jimmy
accompanied him. And living quite alone, as he had during his earlier
years on the coast, there was no one who could have fed or cared for
dogs when Skipper Ed was absent upon these trapping expeditions. It was
therefore only during the two or three years preceding the year of
famine, when Jimmy was old enough to care for them, and wished them,
that he had a team.
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