The Eskimos were a race largely unknown to civilized men. White men had seen much more of the native American Indians who lived in more temperate climates. These young Americans found a great deal to interest them during the winter among these strange people of the far North. Hunting was their chief pursuit, and the Americans found that they spent much of their time indoors playing a game called _Nu-glew-tar_, which sharpened their quickness of eye and sureness of aim. It was a simple sport; a small piece of bone, pierced with a row of small holes, was hung from the roof of the hut by a rope of walrus hide, and a heavy weight was fastened to the end of the bone to keep it from swinging. The Eskimo players were each armed with a small sharp-pointed stick, and each in turn would thrust his stick at the bone, trying to pierce one of the holes. The prize was won by the player who pierced the bone and held it fast with his stick. As soon as spring opened Lieutenant Schwatka started out, leaving his winter camp in April, 1879, and crossing in as straight a line as possible to Montreal Island, near the mouth of the Black River. He took with him twelve Eskimos, men, women, and children, and dogs to pull the sledges. They carried food for one month only, intending to hunt during the summer. Every night the Eskimos built snow huts, or igloos, in which the party camped. As they went on they met men of another Arctic tribe, the Ook-joo-liks, who wore shoes and gloves made of musk-ox skin, which was covered with hair several inches long, and made the wearers look more like bears than like men. One of these natives said that he had seen a ship that had sunk off Adelaide Peninsula, and that he and his friends had obtained such articles as spoons, knives, and plates from the ship. Lieutenant Schwatka thought the ship was probably either the _Erebus_ or the _Terror_. Later his party found an old woman who said that when she had been on the southeast coast of King William Land not many years before she had seen ten white men dragging a sledge with a boat on it. Five of the white men put up a tent on the shore and five stayed with the boat. Some men of the woman's tribe had killed seals and given them to the white men; then the white men had left, and neither she nor any of her tribe had seen them again. Asking questions of the Eskimos he met, Lieutenant Schwatka and his comrades gradually pieced together the story of what had happened to Franklin and his men. But the American was not content with what he had learned in this way, and he determined to cross Simpson Strait to King William Land, and search for records there during the summer. This meant that he would have to spend the summer on this bare and desolate island, as there would be no chance to cross the strait until the cold weather of autumn should form new ice for a bridge.