The northern lights were more vivid than usual, making the sky quite
luminous; and there was a sharp freshness in the air, which, while it
induced the hunters to pull their hoods more tightly round their faces,
also sent their blood careering more briskly through their veins, as
they drove swiftly over the ice in the Esquimau sledges.
"Did ye ever see walruses afore, Davie?" inquired Buzzby, who sat beside
Summers on the leading sledge.
"None but what I've seed on this voyage."
"They're _re_markable creeturs," rejoined Buzzby, slapping his hand on
his thigh. "I've seed many a one in my time, an' I can tell ye, lad,
they're ugly customers. They fight like good uns, and give the
Esquimaux a deal o' trouble to kill them--they do."
"Tell me a story about 'em, Buzzby--do, like a good chap," said Davie
Summers, burying his nose in the skirts of his hairy garment to keep it
warm. "You're a capital hand at a yarn; now, fire away."
"A story, lad; I don't know as how I can exactly tell ye a story, but
I'll give ye wot they calls a hanecdote. It wos about five years ago,
more or less, I wos out in Baffin's Bay, becalmed off one o' the
Esquimau settlements, when we wos lookin' over the side at the lumps of
ice floatin' past, up got a walrus not very far off shore, and out went
half-a-dozen kayaks, as they call the Esquimau men's boats, and they all
sot on the beast at once. Well, it wos one o' the brown walruses, which
is always the fiercest; and the moment he got the first harpoon he went
slap at the man that threw it.
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