The dogs had been watching, with heads and ears erect; but at the report of the rifles they swung sharply to the shore, and the next instant we were hurrying across the rocks and over the snow, the dogs dragging the sledges as if they had been empty.
When we reached the two hunters they were standing patiently beside the deer.

I had told them not to disturb him, as some good photographs were desired.

He was a beautiful creature, almost snow-white, with magnificent branching antlers.

When the photographs were taken, all four of the men set to work, skinning and cutting him up.
[Illustration: FAMILY GROUP OF PEARY CARIBOU (RANGIFER PEARYI), ARRANGED BY "FROZEN TAXIDERMY" AND PHOTOGRAPHED BY FLASHLIGHT] The scene is vivid in memory: the towering mountains on both sides of James Ross Bay, with the snow-covered foreshore stretching down to the white surface of the bay; in the south the low-lying sun, a great glare of vivid yellow just showing through the gap of the divide, the air full of slowly dropping frost crystals; and the four fur-clad figures grouped around the deer, with the dogs and the sledges at a little distance--the only signs of life in that great white wilderness.
When the deer was skinned and dressed, the pelt was carefully rolled and put on one of the sledges, the meat was made into a pile for Wesharkoopsi to take back to the ship when he returned from Sail Harbor with empty sledge, and we pushed along the western shore of the bay; then, taking to the land again, still westward across this second peninsula and low divide, till we came to the little bight, called Sail Harbor by the English, on the western side of Parry Peninsula.
Here, out at the mouth of the harbor, under the lee of the protecting northern point, we made our second camp.
Wesharkoopsi deposited his load of supplies, and I wrote a note for Bartlett, who was west of us on his way to Cape Columbia.

That night we had deer steak for supper--a feast for a king.
After a few hours' sleep we started, straight as the crow flies, across the eastern end of the great glacial fringe, heading for the mouth of Clements Markham Inlet.