Читать книгу The White Czar. A Story of a Polar Bear онлайн

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Finally at the top of the mountain with their shaggy backs to a cliff the musk ox herd came to bay.

Many hard battles with the white wolves had taught both the musk ox and the reindeer herds that their only safety when brought to bay in this manner was in presenting a solid front of horns to the enemy. If it had been merely a question of the yelping snapping Eskimo dogs, they would have beaten them off easily.

This was plainly evidenced by the fact that when Eiseeyou arrived on the scene one of the younger dogs who had never seen Omingmong before had paid the price of too much valor with his life. He lay in the snow beneath the hoofs of a mighty bull gored to death, while another limped towards Eiseeyou fatally wounded.

Eiseeyou did not at once begin firing into the herd. They were all bunched against the wall and the dogs held them safely so he waited for Tukshu and Tunkine, The Eskimo is very fair in his division of the kill. They often give a portion of the kill to those present, even though they take no active part. When his two companions at last arrived, the three formed in a half circle perhaps a hundred feet from the herd. It was not sportsmanlike, but simply a killing for meat. It was meat and hides that they were after, so they did their work with their high power modern rifles as quickly as possible. In almost as short a time as it takes to tell it the herd of Omingmongs were kicking in the snow all dead or mortally wounded.