I grabbed my mittens, tied on my snowshoes, told one man to get my carbine and cartridges, and the others to hitch the dogs to the empty sledge, and started off as I was, in my blanket shirt, having thrown off my _kooletah_ (deerskin coat) while working over the cooker in the tent making tea. I was as foolish as the others, and only when some distance from the tent and I realised that I was running, did I come to my senses. It was too late to go back for my _kooletah_ and the oil-stove cooker, but I did call a halt on the pace which in our excitement we were making. The musk-oxen were not less than six miles away and we, weak and footsore, on top of a day’s trying march, were running in our eagerness. Yet every once in a while I found myself unconsciously hurrying. There were nine of us, Henson, myself and seven Eskimos. Clark and Pooblah and Panikpah had not reached camp when we started. Less than half-way over Henson dropped out and went back. I should have been glad to, but the musk-oxen meant too much to us. I felt the safety of the party resting on me, we had scant cartridges, could not afford to waste one, and I could not trust my excited men. When within a couple of miles of the animals I began to worry. We were in plain sight of them and it seemed as if our snowshoes made a noise like thunder. Then I feared the few things of hair and bone which we called dogs would not have strength to round up our quarry. When within a mile I put two Eskimos in advance with two dogs and followed close behind with my carbine. When the gray dog saw the musk-oxen and was loosened, my fear came on again; had he strength enough to overtake them and then to dodge their horns? The shore here was a steep bank like a railway fill, with a slope of about 30 degrees and three hundred feet or more in height. The animals were just a little back of the crest of the bank. Like a thin shadow the gray dog went straight up the slope, the little black bitch following, and I saw the musk-oxen start to run, then round-up together. Then as the crest of the slope hid them from me, I saw the body of the poor bitch go into the air from the horns of the bull. Poor thing, she had been very faithful but her courage was greater than her strength, and the sharp horns had been too quick for her. Should I be in time, or would the bull send the gray dog after the bitch, and then put miles of snow and rocks between us and his shaggy harem before they stopped?