The dogs were now roused up; the sledges harnessed; and the instant the sea was firm enough to sustain them, the party started.  Sakalar’s intention was to try forced marches in a straight line.  Fortune favored them.  Not an accident occurred for days.  At first they did not move exactly in the same direction as when they came, but they soon found traces of their previous journey, proving that a plain of ice had been forced away at least fifty miles during the thaw.

The road was now again rugged and difficult, firing was getting scarce, the dogs were devouring the fish with rapidity, and only one half the ocean-journey was over.  But on they pushed with desperate energy, each eye once more keenly on the look-out for game.  Every one drove his team in sullen silence, for all were on short allowance, and all were hungry.  They sat on what was to them more valuable than gold, and yet they had not what was necessary for subsistence.  The dogs were urged every day to the utmost limits of their strength.  But so much space had been taken up by the ivory, that at last there remained neither food nor fuel.  None knew at what distance they were from the shore, and their position seemed desperate.  There were even whispers of killing some of the dogs; and Sakalar and Ivan were upbraided for the avarice which had brought them to such straits.

“See!” said the old hunter suddenly, with a delighted smile, pointing toward the south.

The whole party looked eagerly.  A thick column of smoke rose in the air at no very considerable distance.  This was the signal agreed on with the Tchouktchas, who were to camp where there was plenty of wood.

Every hand was raised to urge on the dogs to this point, and at last, from the summit of a hill of ice they saw the shore and the blaze of the fire.  The wind was toward them, and the atmosphere heavy.  The dogs smelled the distant camp, and darted almost recklessly forward.  At last they sank near to the Tchouktcha huts, panting and exhausted.

Their allies of the spring were true; they gave them food, of which both man and beast ate greedily, and then sought repose.  The Tchouktchas had then formed their journey with wonderful success and rapidity, and had found time to lay in a pretty fair stock of fish.  This they freely shared with Ivan and his party, and were delighted when he abandoned to them all his tobacco and rum, and part of his tea.

The Tchouktchas had been four years absent in their wanderings, and were eager to get home once more to the land of the reindeer, and to their friends.  They were perhaps the greatest travelers of a tribe noted for its facility of locomotion.  And so, with warm expressions of esteem and friendship on both sides, the two parties separated—­the men of the east making their way on foot, toward the Straits of Behring.

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VIII.—­THE VOYAGE HOME.