"Who said there wasn't any Santa Claus!" he cried, and at the sound of his voice the huge herd tossed its broad-leaved antlers and rushed madly toward the distant horizon while Frizzie urged them on with cries of "Now, Vixen, now, Dasher!" It was an odd but interesting scene. The Arctic hares were not as numerous as I have seen them on my previous northern trips and those I observed through my glasses were of poor quality and sickly physique. Evidently the gradual dying out of the lapland lark-spurs, which are the natural cover of the hares, has worked havoc among these charming creatures.[11] But now, beyond eighty-six, we had left behind us these semi-domestic creatures and were among the truly Arctic animals, those weird denizens of berg and floe which civilization sees only in zoological gardens or vaudeville performances. From my station near the forepeak I swept the horizon hourly with my glasses cataloguing the myriad species of Arctic life and entering them in my journal with notes as to quantity, quality and other attributes which had a bearing on the commercial or scientific value of the type referred to. I can give no better idea of this sportsman's paradise than by quoting a few extracts from the volume. INTENSIVE OPTIMISM As long as brave deeds are recognized and heroic fortitude receives its just due the name of Reginald Whinney will shine forth in letters of gold. Reference is made in the text to his tragic attack of snow-blindness on the very eve of the arrival of Dr. Traprock (and party) at the Pole. This untoward visitation (by which we mean Whinney's affliction, not the Traprock Expedition), would in itself have been enough to break the heart of any ordinary man, but not the heart of a Whinney. To such as he adversity is as the sunshine to the flower or the flower to the bee, a new source of inspiration and sweetness. In the early days of his blindness he was, of course, greatly depressed. "I am put out but not crushed" was his simple comment. Having recourse to his typewriter he recorded that touching paraphrase of Milton ending with the line, "They also serve who only sit and type." Then came the magnificent "Ode to the Aurora," after which the sun of his vision seemed to burst through the walls of his temporary night. Full of sparkling wit and joyous laughter he fully earned his soubriquet of "Sunbeam-of-the-North." Even before breakfast he was mirth personified; in the evening, he was irrepressible. The Eskimos found in him a source of inexhaustible wonder. To a race living far beyond the sound of a songbird his carollings were nothing short of a miracle.