They had plenty of dogs, sleds, two umiaks which they had brought on the sleds, clothing, and a small amount of blubber and seal meat. That was all; but they were happy, and viewed with no fear the narrow margin which separated them from starvation in the Arctic midwinter. Their snow igloos, carved deep in the drifts on the leeward side of a little hill, and warmed by a stone lamp full of seal oil, were comfortable and at first clean. When they were no longer so, they moved a few rods and carved another without much labor. If the weather was not too severe, the men watched the margin where the pack ice was ground back and forth by the shore ice, and were sometimes rewarded with a seal. They tracked white foxes, ermine, and now and then a wolf or a bear, and exchanged the pelts with the boys for hard-tack, or blankets, or other necessaries of life, and were singularly placid and good-humored. Everything with them was “Nagouruk,” and their chief delight was to visit the ship, and spend hours in the company of their white friends. The outer sheltering igloo of ice cakes, which the boys had built over the galley, won their admiration at once, and they gave it the greatest compliment that an Eskimo can pay. Kroo, the oldest man, and in that respect the chief, as chiefs go in a little Eskimo community, inspected it carefully and solemnly, and then announced oracularly in his own tongue: “It is good. The white brothers are almost as wise as Eskimos.” Many conferences were held between Harluk and Kroo and the two boys as to the prospects and methods of spring whaling in the ice, and as they learned the ways of the whale from their dusky friends and the ease with which they are captured by the Eskimos with their primitive weapons, Harry and Joe became very enthusiastic as to the success which awaited them with modern appliances. Harluk and Kroo were also greatly pleased. The plan meant for them unlimited supplies of whale meat and blubber, and both parties were impatient of the long night of fierce cold that must still pass before they could begin. They got no more bears for a long time, because the cold was so severe that their blubber lamps went out and the tolling smell of stewing salmon failed them. Joe remedied this in part by mixing the whale oil with kerosene, which did not freeze even in the most severe weather, and finally he enlarged his lamp greatly, using a square kerosene can for a reservoir, and filling it with kerosene alone. This worked much better, and an occasional white pelt was added to their store by this means. Out of this, too, came a most singular adventure, which was of great service to the Eskimos, and no doubt saved the lives of both boys, though it lost them a valuable bearskin. It happened late in February, after the sun had begun again to smile at them for a moment above the southern horizon, though his brief daily presence seemed in no wise to abate the cold. CHAPTER VII THE GHOST WOLVES OF THE NUNATAK