The cold up yonder in that Arctic night takes away your breath; it seems to take the manhood out of you. You stumble along gasping. By a chance I came on an Esquimaux sealing, and he beat and thumped me into wakefulness. Then he packed me on to his dog-sleigh, and took my own bit of a sled behind, and set his fourteen-foot whip cracking, and off we set. Well, you have to be pretty far gone if you can stay asleep with an [v]Innuit's dog-sledge jolting and jumping beneath you, and I was well awakened, especially as the Esquimaux sat on top of me. And so in time we brought up at the huts, and a good job, too. I'd been tramping in the wrong direction, so it turned out, and, besides, if I had come to the village, I might well have walked over the top of it, as it was drifted up level with snow. There was a bit of a rabbit-hole giving entrance to each hut, with some three fathoms of tunnel underground, and skin curtains to keep out the draught, but once inside you might think yourself in a [v]stoke-hold again. There was the same smell of oil, and almost the same warmth. I tell you, it was fine after that slicing cold outside. It was Amatikita's house I was brought to, and he was very hospitable. They took off my outer clothes and put them on the rack above the soapstone lamp to dry, and waited on me most kindly. Indeed, they recognized me as a superior at once, and kept on doing it. They put tender young seal-meat in the dish above the lamp, and when it was cooked I ate my part of the stew, and then got up and took the best place on the raised sleeping-bench at the farther side of the hut. I cut a fill for my pipe, lit up and passed the plug, and presently we were all smoking, happy as you please. Amatikita spoke up like a man. "Very pleased to see you, Cappie. What you come for? What you want?" "You're a man of business," I said. "You waste no time. I like that. What I want is bearskins. The jackets of big, white, baggy-trousered polar bears, you know; and I brought along a couple of tip-top rifles for you to get them with. Now, I make you a fair offer. Get me all the bears in the North Polar regions, and you shall have my Henrys and all the cartridges that are left over. And as for the meat, you shall have that as your own share of the game." "You want shoot those bears yourself?" "Not if I can help it. I'm an engineer, and a good one at that. But as a sportsman I've had but little experience, and don't seem drawn toward learning. It is too draughty up here, just at present, for my taste. I'll stay and keep house, and maybe do a bit of repairing and inventing among the furniture. I've brought along a hand-vice and a bag of tools with me, and if you can supply drift-wood and some scrap-iron, I'll make this turf-house of yours a real cottage."