The spirit of barter was in the air, and the boys found themselves entering keenly into it, yet with an eye to the future rather than for the purposes of mere trade. Their future travel must be by water, and they wanted an umiak, but those who had them also wanted them. They found one that belonged to a Point Hope man, however, that could be bought, but not at the price which they could pay. In vain they offered caribou hides, wolverine pelts, and almost everything they had. The price was not sufficient, and they would have given up had the eye of the Eskimo not lighted on the jade Buddha. Harry noted his interest in this, and the Yankee in him rose up. [Illustration: ESKIMO FAMILY TRAVELING] He vowed that the bit of green stone was priceless and could not be parted with on any account. The Eskimo offered various articles for it. Harry would not sell. The owner increased the price. Harry turned his back with much indifference. He remembered the lesson of his trading with the little people of the Diomedes. How long ago that seemed! But the recollection of it was still there. Joe looked on this with much interest, well concealed. He had failed to buy the umiak. If Harry could do it, he was glad, but it would not do to show his gladness. At length, baffled, after offering everything but what the boys wanted, the Point Hope man went away. Joe laughed at Harry, who was chagrined. But the next day the Eskimo came back, bearing the umiak, which was a small one, upside down on his shoulders. He staggered beneath its weight, and it so nearly covered him that only his feet appeared. It had a ludicrous appearance of walking by itself. He emerged from beneath this and laid it at Harry’s feet. “Will the white men give me the little stone for this?” he asked. With wonder in his heart Harry waited a moment, not to seem to yield too easily. Then he passed over the bit of jade and placed his hand on the umiak. The bargain was completed. Thus it is with the Innuit. He is a shrewd trader, yet, sometimes, for no explainable reason, will give his all for a bauble, and in this he is perhaps not so very different from white men, after all. This peculiar trade left the boys with much merchandise still on their hands, and with this they bought trade goods and supplies for the furtherance of their journey. They sold their dogs and sled, and prepared for a boat trip to Bering Straits, where they might find ships. Failing in this, they planned to work south along the coast. Under no conditions would they go north. They had had enough of that.