“This won’t do,” said Joe, “northeast is the trend of the coast up here; we’re not getting much nearer the sea. However, we’ll hold on a few days longer.” Neither Harluk nor the other Eskimos could help their knowledge of the river. The Eskimo knows the coast well and the streams for a few miles back of it. Beyond that, except in particular instances, the land is unknown to him. After another week, and just as they were about decided to camp and make a land reconnoissance to the westward, their stream took a turn to the northwest and they paddled on merrily. The course lay through low bluffs that bordered the river on either hand, and in these bluffs, one day, Harry noted strata of dark stone. They landed, out of curiosity, and examined these black veins. “Why, it’s coal!” exclaimed Harry in astonishment; and so it was,—a sort of semi-bituminous coal that is not so very different from cannel coal. The low bluffs were full of it in veins varying from a few inches wide to eight or ten feet. There was enough coal in sight to supply a city, with the promise of countless thousand tons in the veins beneath the surface. “Coal,” he explained to Harluk and the other Eskimos who had gathered about them, much interested by their enthusiasm, “to burn, makes fire, like wood.” At this the men of the ice shook their heads incredulously. It was time for the midday meal, and Harry essayed to show them that he was right. He built a good fire of willow wood and piled bits of the black stones on it, but it would not ignite that way, and his Eskimo friends wagged their heads and murmured “Kukowillow,” which is an Eskimo word which may be freely translated “big fool.” Here Joe came to his rescue. He carefully built a cylindrical oven of the larger blocks that had fallen from the bluff, and started a snapping wood fire in it. Little by little he added fine coal to this, and was soon gratified to find it ignited. The Eskimos looked on, with smiling incredulity at first, then with wonder, but as the fire grew and began to consume the oven itself, they calmly withdrew from the burning black stones. It was magic, and the stones did not really burn. Joe had only made them think so. Harluk knew he was a great wizard. He had seen his performances at Icy Cape, and this was another one. It was all very well for wizards to burn stones, but the Eskimos knew better than to try it.