"We do not need much," he
soliloquized, "to make us happy if we are willing to be happy. Health
and love, and enough plain food to eat and clothes to cover us, and a
shelter--even a snow house--and we have enough."
Before day broke they were astir; and the sun had not yet risen when
they repacked their sledges and harnessed the dogs, and drove down over
the ice toward the _sena_. For a mile the ice was smooth. Then they came
among the pressure ridges, and had to pick their course in and out for
another two miles before they came at last to the open sea.
Seals were numerous on the ice edge, and on floating pans of ice, and
the dogs began to strain and howl in eagerness to attack the game, and
would have dashed to the very water's edge but for big hoops of walrus
hide thrown over the front of the _komatik_, which dragged into the snow
under the runners and stopped them, and when they were stopped only the
menace of the long whips could induce the animals to lie quietly down.
"We're going to have a dandy hunt!" exclaimed Bobby. "Shall we go right
at it, and build an _igloo_ later?"
"Don't you think we had better build the _igloo_ first?" suggested
Skipper Ed, laughing at Bobby's eagerness. "Then when we're tired we
won't have it to do, or to think about, and we'll have a shelter all
ready. Let us make things ship-shape."
"I suppose you're right," and Bobby grinned.
One of the two lamps and a share of the provisions had been left in the
_igloo_ on Itigailit Island, which was to be their land base and their
cache.
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