"I'll stop at the Eskimo camp," he said to the superintendent. "It's
worth investigating, for I never knew of a white woman north of sixty
in this country. It might be Scottie Deane."

"Not very likely," replied the superintendent. "Scottie is a tall man,
straight and powerful. Coujag says this man was no taller than
himself, and walked like a hunchback. But if there are white people
out there their history is worth knowing."

The following morning MacVeigh started north. He reached the
half-dozen igloos which made up the Eskimo village late the third day.
Bye-Bye, the chief man, offered him no encouragement, MacVeigh gave
him a pound of bacon, and in return for the magnificent present
Bye-Bye told him that he had seen no white people. MacVeigh gave him
another pound, and Bye-Bye added that he had not heard of any white
people. He listened with the lifeless stare of a walrus while MacVeigh
impressed upon him that he was going inland the next morning to search
for white people whom he had heard were there. That night, in a
blinding snow-storm, Bye-Bye disappeared from camp.

MacVeigh left his dogs to rest up at the igloo village and swung
northwest on snow-shoes with the break of arctic dawn, which was but
little better than the night itself. He planned to continue in this
direction until he struck the Barren, then patrol in a wide circle
that would bring him back to the Eskimo camp the next night. From the
first he was handicapped by the storm. He lost Bye-Bye's snow-shoe
tracks a hundred yards from the igloos. All that day he searched in
sheltered places for signs of a camp or trail. In the afternoon the
wind died away, the sky cleared, and in the wake of the calm the cold
became so intense that trees cracked with reports like pistol shots.