10
THE SCBANTOJT TRIBTTNE SATURDAY MOBNING, OCTOBER 26, 1895.
diuierini
Copyright 1S9& by
CHAPTER I.
'We has opened hla eyes. Look!"
"Put him dn 'the skin again. He will
be a strong dog; on the fourth month
We will name him."
"For whom?" said Amoraq.
Kadlu's eyes rolled rouud the skin
lined enow house till It came to 14-Tear-old
Kotuko sitting on the sleep
lug bench making a button of walrus
Ivory. "Name him for me," said Ko
tuko, with a grin. "I shall need him
tome (Jay."
Kadlu grinned back till hla eyes
Were almost burled In the fat of hla flat
Cheeks, and nodded to Amoraq while
Ills puppy's fierce mother whined1 to
see her 'baby -wriggling far out of reach
In the little sealskin pouoh hung above
the warmth of the blubber lamp.
Kotuko went on with his carving and
Kadlu threw ia rolled bundle of leather
dog-harnesses into a tiny little room
that opened from one flide of the house;
lipped off his heavy deerskin hunting
uit, put It into a whalebone net that
bung above another lamp and dropped
down on the sleeping bench to whittle
art a piece of frozen seal meat, till
Amonaq, his wife, should bring the reg
ular dinner of boiled' meat and blood
soup. He had been out since early
dawn at the sead holes, eight miles
way, on the lee at the edge of the lloe,
nd had come home with . three big
seals. Half way down the long, low
now passage or tunnel, that led to the
in hot door of the bouse, you could hear
napplngs and yelpings, aa the dogs of
tils sleigh team, released from theilr
day's work, ecullled for warm places.
When the yelpings grow too loud,
Kotuko lazily rolled off the sleeping
bench, and, picking up a dog whip with
an 18-lnoh handle of springy whalebone,
nd twenty-live feet of heavy plaited
thong, he dived llnto the passage where
tt sounded as though all the dogs were
eating him alive; but that was no more
than their regular grace before meals.
When he crawled but of the far end of
the passage half a dozen furry heads
followed 'him with their eyes as he went
to a short gallows of whale jaw bones,
from which the dog's meat was hung,
split off the frozen stuff In big lumps
with a toroadheaded1 spear, and stood,
'his whip In one hand and the meat In
the other. Baoh beawt was called by
name the weakest llrst and woe be
tide any dog that moved out of his turn,
for the tapering lash would shoot out
like thonged lightning and flick away
an inch or so or 'hair and hide. Kach
beast simply growled once, snapied
once, choked once over his portion, and
hurried back to the protection of the
enow passage, while the boy stood on
the snow1 under the blazing northern
lights and dealt out justice. The last to
be served was ithe big black leader of
the team, who kept order when they
were harnessed,; and - to him Kotuko
gave a double allowance of meat, .as
well as an extra crackof the whip.
"Alh!" eald Kotuko, , coiling up the
lash, "I have a little one over the lamp
that will make a great many howlings.
Barpok! 'Get In!"
He crawled back over the huddled
idogs, -dilated, the dry now from 'his, furs
With the wlialebonelbeater-that Amo
raq kept by the door; tapped the skin
lined roof of the house to shake off any
Icicles that might have fullen from the
Dealt Out Justice,
dome of snow above, and curled up on
the bench. The dogs. In the passage
snored and whined in their sleep, the
boy baby dn Amoraq's deep fur hood
kicked and choked und gurgled, and
the mother of the newly named puipy
lay at -Kotuko's side, iher eyes llxed on
the bundle of sealskin warm and safe
above 'the broad, yellow flame of the
lamp,- .
And all this 'happened far away to
the north; beyond 'Labrador, beyond
Hudston's etralt,, where the great tides
throw the Ice mount, north of Melville
peninsula north even ' of the narrow
Fury and iHccla straits on 'the north
hore of Batiln land, where Bylot's
island etands above theilce of Lancaster
sound like a pudding bowl wrong side
tip. North of -Lancaster sound there
Is nothing we know anything about ex
cept North Devon and Kllesmere Land;
but even there ilve a few scattered peo
ple nexit door, as it were, to the very
pole
Kadlu was an Inu.lt what you call
an Esquimau and 'his tribe, eome
fifty persons all toldt belonged to the
Tunuwirmiuft 'Uhe coulntry lying at
the 'back of something." In the maps
that desolate coast is called Navy
Board Inlet; but the Inult name is best,
because the country lies at the very
back of everything In the world. For
nine months of the year there Is only ice
as hard as rock, snow, and gale after
Kale, with a cold that no one can real
ise Who has never seen the thermome
ter go down even to aero. For six
month of 'those nine It Is dark, end that
Is what makes H so horrible. For the
three months .of the summer it- only
freezes every other day 'and every
night, and then the snow , begins to
weep away to the southerly slopes, and
afew ground willows put out their wool
ly buds, a tiny etone crop or eo makes
believe to blossom, beaches of .fine
gravel and rounded etones run down to
the open sea, and polished bowlders and
streaked rocks lift up above the granu
lated enow. But all that "goes . aiviay
In a few weeks, end the wild winter
looks down again on the land; while at
sea the torn end powdered ice tears up
and down the offing. Jamming and ram
ming, and splitting and hitting, andi
pounding and grounding, till It ell
freezes together ten feet thick from the
land outward to deep waiter.-
In the winter .Katflu would follow the
seals to the edge of the land Ice and
epear them as they aime Up to hrea'the
at their blow, holes. The seals must
have open water to live and catch fish
1n, and In the deep of winter the Ice
would sometimes run eighty miles
without a break from tine nearest land.
In the spring he and hla people retreat
ed from the thawing floes to the rocky
mainland, where they put tip tents of
kins and snared the eea birds or.
speared the young seal bgsklng on the
beaches. Later,' -they would o south
Into Baffin land after the reindeer and
to get their year's store of salmon from
the hundreds of streams and Jakes of
the interior, coming back north In Sep
tember, or October for the musk ox
hunting and the regular winter sealery.
This traveling was done wltn dbg
lelgha, twenty and thirty miles a day,
os sometimes down the coast hi big skin
"woman boats," when the dogs and
the babies lay among the feet of the
rowers, end the women earn sopgs as
they glided from cape to cape over the
Classy, cold water. All the luxuries
Irving Bachcllar.
the Tununirmiut knew came from the
south driftwood - for sleigh runners,
rod iron for harpoon tips, steel knives,
tin kettles that cooked nsh much bet
ter than-the-old soapstone affairs, flint
and steel and even matches, colored rib
bons for the women's hair, mtle cheap
mirrors and red cloth for the edgmg.of
deerskin dress jackets.. Kadlu traded
the rich, creamy-twisted narwhal horn
and musk tx teeth (these ere Just as
valuable as. pearls) to . the southern
Inuit, and they in turn traded with the
whalers and the missionary posts of
Kxeter and Cumberland sounds, and so
the chain went on till a kettle picked up
by a ship's cook in the Bhendy bazaar
might end Its days over a blubber lamp
somewhere on the cool side of the arctic
circle.
Kadlu, being a good hunter, was rich
In iron harpoons, snow knives, bird
darts and all other things that make
life eaEy up there in the great cold, and
he was the head of his tribe, or, as they
say, "the man Who knows all about it
by practice." This did not give him any
authority, except now and then he
could advise his friends to change their
hunting grounds, but Ketuko used It to
domineer a little, 1n the lazy, fat Inult
fashion, over the other boys when they
came out at night to play ball In the
moonlight or to sing the child's' song to
the .Aurora Borealist.
But at fourteen an Inuit feels himself
a man, and Kotuko was tired of making
snares for wild fowls and kit foxes, and
most tired of all of helping the women
to chew seal and deer skins (that
makes them supple as nothing else cam)
the long day through while the men
were out hunting . Ho wanted, to go
Into the quaggi, the singing house
when the hunters gathered there for
their my.i'teries, and the angekok, the
sorcerer, frightened them Into the most
delightful fits after the lamps were put
out and you could bear the spirit of the
reindeer stamping upon .the roof, and
when n spear was 'thrust out Into the
open black night It came back cov
ered with hot blood. 'He wanted to
throw his Wg boots Into the net with
the tired air of a h.-ad of a family, and
he wanted to gamble with the hunters
when they, dropped In of an evening to
play a sort of homemade roulette with
a tin pot and a nail. There were hun
dreds of things that he wanted to lo
but the grown men 'laughed at him and
said: "Walt till you have been In the
buckle, Kotuko. Hunting is not all
fat!"
Now that his fr.'ther had named a
puppy for' him, things looked brighter.
An Inult does not waste a good dog on
his son till the boy knows something of
dog driving; and Kotuko was more
than sure that he knew more than ev
erything. '
If the puppy had not had an Iron con
stitution hp would have died from over
stuffing and overhauling. Kotuko .made
him a tiny 'harness-with a. trace to 'It
and hauled him all over the house
floor, shouting: 'Una! Ja aua! (do to
the right!) 'C'holaehol! Ja . cholachol!
(Go to the lcft!) Ohaha! (Stop." The
did not like It at all; .but be
ing fished for' in ..this way was pure
happiness beside being put to the sleigh
for the first time'.' He Just sat down
on the snow and played with the seal
hide trace that ran from his harness
to the pltu, the big thong In the boks
of the sleigh. Then the team started
and the ipuppy found the heavy ten
foot sleigh running up his back and
dragging him airing the snow, while
Kotuko laughed till the tears-ran down
his face. Then there followed days and
days of the cruel whip that hisses like
the wind over ice, and .his companions
all bit him because he did not know
his' work, and the' 'harness chafed him,
and he was not allowed to sleep with
Katuko any more, ' but had to take
the coldest place In the passage. It
was a sad time for the 'puppy. The boy
learned, too, as fast as the dog; and a
dog sleigh Is a heart breaking thing to
manage. Each beast Is harnessed
the weakest- nearest to the driver by
his separate trace, which runs under his
left fore leg to the main thong, where
it is fastened by a sort of button and
loop which can be slipped by a turn of
the wrist, thus ' freeing one dog. at a
time This Is very necessary, because
young dogs often get the trace between
their hind legs, where It cuts to the
bone. And they one and all will go vis
iting their friends as they run. Jump
ing In and out among the traces. Then
they light and the result Is more mixed
than a-wet fishing line next-morning:
A great deal of trouble can be avoided
by scientific use of the whip. Every
Inult boy 'prides himself as being a
master of the long lash; but It Is easy
to flick at a mark on the ground, and
difficult to lean forward and catch a
Fdirklng doer Just behind the shoulders
when the sleigh Is going at full speed.
If you call one dog's name for "vis
iting" and accidentally lash another
the two will fight at once and stop all
the iqthers.-'Agaln, If you travel with
a companion and begin to talk, or by
yourself and sing, the dogs will hnlt,
turn around and sit down to hear what
you have to say. Kotuko was run
away from once or twice by forgetting
to Hock the sleigh 'when he stopped, and
he broke many lashings and ruined a
few thongs before he could be. trusted
with a full team of eight and a light
sleigh. Then he felt himself a person of
consequence, and on smooth, black Ice,
with' a bold heart and a quick elbow,
he smoked along over the levels as fast
as a pack In full cry. He would go
twenty miles to the seal holes, and
when he was on his hunting ground
he would twitch a trace loose, from the
pltu and free the big Mack leader, who
was the cleverest dog In the team. As
soon as the dog had scented a breathing
hole Kotuko would reverse the sleigh,
driving a couple of sawed-off antlers
that stuck up like perambulator handles
from the back rest deep Into the snow,
so that the team could not get away.
Then he would crawl forward Inch by
Inch and wait till the seal came up to
breathe. Then be stabbed down swiftly
with his spear i and running line, and
presently would-'haul his seal up to the
lip of the lee while the black leader
came up and helped to pull the car
cass across the Ice to the sleigh.- That
was the time when. the. harnessed dogs
yelled and foamed with excitement, and
Kotuko laid the', long lash like a red
hot bar across all their faces till the
carcass froze stiff. Oolng hme was the
heavy work. The loaded sleigh had to
be humored among the rough' Ice, and
the dogs sat down and looked hungrily
at the seal Instead of pulling... At last
they would strike the well-worn sleigh
road to the village and toodle klyl along
tlhe ringing ice, heads down and tails up
while Kotuko struck up the ."Angu
tlvun tal-na tau-na ne?talna," the song
of the returning . hunter,' and voices
hailed him from house to house under
all that dim. star-lltten cold. ' .
When Kotuko, the dog, came ' to bis
full growth ho -enjoyed himself, too,
He fought his way up the team steadi
ly, fight after fight, till one fine eve
ning over their food he tackled ifte big
black " leader. (Kotuko." the boy, saw
fair play with the fe-hlp) and made sec
ond, dog.of him, a -Khey say. Bo he was
promoted to the lona thong of the lead
ing dog, running flveVeet Itf advance of
all the - other.. It -ttaw hl- toounden
duty to stop all fighting In harness or
out of It. and he worea collar of copper
wire, very thick ani heavy.. On. spei
rial occasions he wafc fed with cooked,
food 'Inside the hnivp 'and sometimes
was allowed vto slew on the bench with
Kotuko. He was A good seal dog and
could keep a muskf.ox at bay by running
round him and snapping at his heels.
He would even, and this for a sleigh dog
Is the last proof off bravery, fie wtml
even stand up to the gaunt Arctic
wolf, whom H dogs at the north as a
rule fear beyond anything that walks
the snow. He and his master they
did not count the team of ordinary dogs
as company hunted 'together day after
day and night after nJghtteir-wrapped
boy and savage, long-haired, narrow
eyed, White-fanged yellow brute. All
an Inult has to do is tto get food and
skins for -himself and hie family. The
women folk make the skins Into cloth
ing and occasionally help In trapping
small game; but the bulk of the food,
and they eat enormously, must be found
by t'iie men. If the supply falls there
Is no one up there to buy or beg or
borrow from. The people must die.
CHAPTER n. -
An Inuit .does not think of these
chances till he Is forced to. Kadlu,
Kotuko, Amoraq and the boy baby, who
kk-ked about in Amoraq's fur hood and
chewed "pieces of blubber all day, were
as happy together as any family in the
world. They came of a very gentle
race an Inult seldom loses his temper
and almost never strikes a child who
did not know exactly what telling a lie
meant, stil less how to steal. They
were content to drag their living out
of the heart of the bitter, hopeless cold;
to smile oily smiles and tell queer ghost
and fairy tales of evenings; and eat
till they could eat no more, and sing the
endless woman's song; "Amna aya,
aya amnah ah! ah!" through the long,
lamp-lighted days as they mended their
clothes and their hunting gear.
.But one terrible winter everything
betrayed them. The Tununirmiut re-.
The Old Woman Told ilst Stories.
turned from the yearly alntin fishing
and made their houses .m.th" early ice
to the north of Ilellofs IMaiid ready to
go after .the seal as soon u.-t the sea
froze. Hut it was an early and sav
age autumn. All through S.-pteinber
there were continuous galea that broke
up the smooth seal ice where it was
only four or five feet thick and forced
it Inland and plied a ureat barrier some
thirty miles brood of lumped and
ragged and needly Ice owl which
It was Impossible to draw the sleighs.
The edge of the floe off which the seal
were used to fish In winter lay perhaps
twenty miles beyond this barrier and
out of reach of the Tununirmiut. Even
so, they might have imanag'ed to scrape
through the winter on their stock of
frozen salmon and stored blubber and
what the traps gave them, but In De
cember one of their hunters came
across a tuplk, ft ekln tent, or three
women and a girl nearly dead whose
men had come down from the far
north and been crushed In their ka
Jaks (their little tskln hunting boaits)
while ithey were out after the long
horned narwhal. Kadlu, of course,
could only distribute the women among
the 'huts of the winter village, for no
lnuis would dare refuse a meal to a
Btranger. He never knows when hte
own itlme may come to beg. Amoraq
took the girl, who was about 14, Into
her own house as a sort of servant.
From the cut of her' sharp-pointed
hiod and t'he long diamond pattern of
her white deerskin leggings, they sup
posed she came from Ellesmere land.
She had never seen tin cooking pots or
wooden-shod sleighs before; but Ko
tuko, the boy, and Kotuko, the dog,
were rather fond of her.
Then all the foxes went eouth; and
even the wolverine, the . growling,
blunt-headed little thief of the snow,
did not take the trouble to follow the
line of empty traps that Kotuko set.
The tribe lost a couple of their best
hunters, who were badly crippled in a
fight with a musk x, and that threw
more work on the others. Kotuko went
out, day after day, with a light hunt
ing eleigh and six or seven of the
strongest dogs, looking till ' his eyes
ached forwome patch of clear Ice where
a seal might perhaps heve scratched a
breathing hole. Katuko, the dog,
ranged far and wide, and In the dead
stillness of the Ice fields Kotuko, the
boy, could hear his half-choked whine
of excitnment above a seal hole three
miles away as plainly as though he
were at his elbow. When the' dog
found a hole the boy would build him
self a little low snow wall to keep off
the worst of ithe bitter wind, and there
he would wait ten, twelve, twenty
hours for the eal to come up to
breathe, his ey3 glued to the tiny mark
he had made above the hole to guide the
downward thrmlt of his harpoon, a lit
tle sealskin mat under his feet and
his logs tied together In the tutareang
the buckle that the old hunters had
talked about. This helps to keep a
man's legs from twKchlng as he waits
and waits and waits for the quick
eared cseal to rise. Though there is
no excitement In It, you can easily be
lieve that the sitting still In the buckle,
with the thermometer perhaps 40 de
grees below zero. Hf" the, hardest work an
Inuit knows. "When a iseal was caught
Kotuko,, the dog, would boun'i forwardv
his trace trailing behind him, and help
to pull the body to the sleigh, where the
tired and bungry dogs lay sullenly
undorthe lee of the broken Ice.
A. sea I did not go very far, for each
mouth In the little village had a right to
be filled and never bone, hide nor sinew
was wasted. The dog's meat was
taken for human use and Amoraq fed
the team with plees of old summer
skin-tents raked out from under the
sleeping bench, and they howled and
hnwled again, and waked to howl
hungrily. One could tell by the soap
stone lamps In the huts that famine
was near. In good ' seasons when
blubber Is plentiful the light' In the
boat-shaped lamips would be' two feet
high, cheerful, oily and yellow. Now
It was a bare six inches: Amoraq
carefully iprlcked down the moss wick
when an unwatched flame brightened
for a moment, and the eyes of all the
family followed her hand, The hor
ror of famine .up there In the great
cold Is not so much dying as dying In
thqjdark. All the Inult dread the dark
that presses on them without a break
for six months In each year, and when
the lamps are low' In' the houses the
minds of people begin to be shaken,
and confused. . : " .
Rut worse was to come.
The underfed dogs snapped and
growled In the passages, glaring at the
cr.ld stars and snuffing Into the bitter
wind, night, after night. When they
stopped howling the silence fell down
again as solid and as heavy as a snow
drift against a door, and men could
hear the beating of their blood In the
thin passages of the ear ar,1 the thump
ing of their hearts that sounded as loud
as the noise of sorcerers' drums beaten
across the snow. One ri'.tibt Kotuko,
the. dog. who had been tihusimlly silent
In harness, leaped n t r.1 pushed his
head against Kotukn's knee.' Kotuko
patted him. but the'dng still pushed
blindly forward, fawning. Then Kad
hi waked and stared Into I he glassy
eyes. The dog-whimpered (is though
he were afraid arid shivered between
Kadlu's knees. ' . Thm the' hair rose
stbout his neck and he , growled as
though, a stranger were a. the door;
then he bs-rked joyously an 1 rolled on
tie rround and at Kotuko'u boot like
a- puppy. - . ' .
frT
1
What Is itr eald Kotudo, for he
was beginning to be Afraid.
'The sickness,". Kadlu answered. "It
la .the dog-sickness." Kotuko the dog
lifted his nose and howled and howled
again. - i-v,
1 "I- have not seen this before. WHiat
will he dor said Kotuko.
Kadlu shrugged one shoulder a little
and crossed the hut f orhls short stab
bing harpoon. The big dog looked at
him, howled, again and slunk away
down the passage while the other dogs
drew aside right and left to give him
aunple room. When he was out on the
snow he barked furiously as though on
the trail of a musk ox. and barking
and leaping and frisking passed out of
sight. This was not .hydrophobia, but
simple plain madness. The cold and
the hunger and above all the dark had
turned his head;, and when the terrible
dog-sickness once ehows itself In a team
It spreads like wild-tlre. Mext hunting
day another dog sickened and was
killed then and there iby Kotuko as he
bit and struggled among the traces.
Then the black second dog who had
been the leader In the old days sudden
ly gave tongue on an imaginary rein
deer track, and when they slipped him
from the pltu he flew at the throat of
an Ice-cliff, and ran away as his leader
had done, -his harness on his back.
After that no one would take the dogs
out ' again. They needed them for
something else and the dogs knew It
and though they were tied down and
fed by hand their eyes were full of
desnpalr and fear.- To make things
worse the " old women began to tell
ghost-tales -and to say that they had
met the spirits of the dead hunters
lost that autumn who irophesled all
sorts of horrible things.
Kotuko grieved more for the loss of
his dog than anything elso, for Chough
an Inult eats enormously ho also knows
when to starve. Cut the hunger, the
darkness, . the cold and the exposure
told on his strength,, and he began to
hear voices Inside his head and to see
people, who were not there, out of the
taBI of his eye. One .night he had un
buckled himself after ten hours wait
ing above a "blind" seal-hole and was
staggering back to the village faint ani
dizzy he halted to lean his back
against a bowlder which happened to
be supported like a rocking-stone on a
single jutting point of ice. Ills weight
diisturbtd the balance of the thing, it
rolled over ponderously and as Kotuko
sprang aside to avoid It slid alter him
squeaking and hissing on the ice slope.
' That was enough for Kotuko. He
had been brought up to believe that
every rock and bowlder had Its owner
(Its inua) who was generally a one
eyed kind of a woman think called a
tornnq, and that when a tornnq meant
to help a man she rolled after him In
side her tone houe and asked him
wheUher he would take her for a guard
ian F-plrlt. (In summer thaws the Ice
held rocks and bowlders roll and slip
all over the face of the land, so you can
easily see how the Idea of live stones
arose.) Kotuko heard the blood beating
In his ears as he bad heard It alii day.
and he thought it was .the tornaq of the
stone speaking to him. Hofore he
reached home he .was quite certain that
he had 'held a long conversation with
her, and, as all his people believed that
this was quite possible, no one contra
dicted him.
"She said to me: 'I jump down, I
Jump down from my 'place on the
sncw,' cried Kotudo, with hollow eyes,
leaning forward In the half lighted mut.
"'She saM: 'I will be a guide." She says:
'I wHl guide you to the good seal boles.
Tomorrow I nvlfll go and the tornaq
will qulde me."
, Then Angekok,' the village sorcerer,
came in and Kotuko told him the tale
a second time. It lost nothing in the
telling.
"Follow the tornalt (the spirit of the
stone's) and they will bring us food
again," said the angekok.
Now the girl from the north had been
lying near the lamp, eating very little
lis Tells of His Tornaq.
and saying less for days pasrt, but when
Amoraq and Kadlu next -morning
packed and lashed a little hand sleigh
for Kotuko and loaded It with his hunt
ing gear and as much blubber and
frozen seal meat as they could spare,
she took the pulling rope, and stepped
out boldly at the boy's side.
"Your house Is my house," she said,
as the little bone-tihod slelgh squeaked
and bumped behind them in the awful,
silent Arctic night.
"My bouse is your house," 'said Ko
tuko, "but I think that we shall both
go to Sedna together." i
Now Sedna Is the mistress of the Un
derworld and the Inult believes that
everyone who dies must spend a year in
her horrible country before going on to
Quadliparmliut, the Happy F'lace, where
It never freezes and the fat reindeer
trot up when you calk
Through the village people were
shouting: "The tornait have spoken to
Kotuko. They will show him open Ice.
lie will bring us the seal again." Their
voices were soon swallowed up by the
cold empty dark, and Kotuko and the
girl shouldered close together as they
strained on 'the pulling- rope or hu
mored' the sleigh through the broken
lo-e. In, the direction of the Polar sea.
Kotuko Insisted that the tornaq: of the
stone had. told Mm to go north and
north they went under TuktugdJung,
the reindeer what we call the Great
Bear.
No European could have made five
miles a day over the Ice rubbish and the
sharp-edged drifts; but those two knew
exactly the turn of the -wrist that
coaxes a sleigh round a hummock, the
jerk that neartly lifts it out of an loo
crack, and the exact strength that goes
to the few qu!et strokes of the spear
head that make n. path possible when
everything looks hopelees. -.
The girl paid nothing but bowed her
head, and the Ions wolverine fur fringe
to her ermine hood blew across her
broad, dark face. The sky above them
was an Intense velvety black.' changing
to bands of Indian red on the horizon
where the great stars burned like street
lamps. From time to time a greenish
wave of the nothern lights would roll
across the hollow of the high heavens,
flick like a flag and disappear; or a
metar would crackle from darkness to
darkness trailing a shower of sparks
behind. Then they could see the ridged
and furrowed surface of the floe tipped
and laced with strange colors, red. cop
per. and bluish; but in the ordinary
starlight everything turned to one frost
bitten gray.
" ' CHAPTER nL. ,,
The' floe, as you will' remember, had
been battered and tormented by the
autumn gales till It was one frozen
eatvhquake. There were Rullles and
ravines; and holes like gravel pits cut
out of Ice; lumps and scattered pieces
frozen down to the original floor of
the floe; blotches of old black Ice that
had been thrust under the floe In some
gale, and heaved up-again, roundish
bowlders of ice; saw-Uke edges of Ice
carved by the snow that flies before the
wind, and sunk pita where thlrty or
forty acres lay five or six feet below the
Iavi4 of Hie rest oif the field. 'From
little distance you might have taken
the lumps for seat, or . wairus, over
turned sleighs or men on a hunting: ex
pedition or even the great ten-legged;
whHe Spiritbear himself, but In spite
of all these fantastic shapes, all on the
very edge of starting Into life, there was
neither sound nor the least faint echo
of sound. And through this silence
and through this waste where the sud
den lights flapped and Went out again
the sleigh and the two that pulled it
crawled like things in a nightmare a
nightmare of (he end of the world at
tne end or tine world.
When they were tired Kotuko would
make what the hunters call a "half
house" a very small enow hut into
which they would huddle with the trav
eling lamp and try to thaw out the
frozen seal meat. When they had slept,
the march began again thirty miles a
day to g!t ten miles northward. The
girl was always. very silent, but Kotuko
muttered to himself and broke out into
songs he had learned In the singing
house summer songs and reindeer and
salmon songs all horribly out of place
at that season. He would declare that
he heard -the tornnq growling to him
and would run wildly up a hummock
tossing his arms and speaking to some
one In loud threatening tones. To tell
the truth Kotukoiwas very nearly crazy
for the time being; hut the girl was
sure that be was being guided by his
guardian spirit and -that everything
would come right. She was not sur
prised therefore-when, at tlhe end of
the fourth march, Kotuko, whose eyes
were burning like fire balls In his head,
told her that his tornaq was following
theim across the enow In the shape of a
two-headed dog. The girl looked wnere
Kotuko pointed and something seemed
to slip Into a ravine. It was ceriainly
net human, but everybody knew that
the tornalt preferred to appear In the
snape or Dear and seal and such like.
It mlgbt have been tthe ten-legged
white Spiritbear himself, or It might
have been anything, for Kotuko and the
g",rl were bo starved that their eyes be
trayed them. They had trapped noth
ing and seen no traceof game since they
had left the village; their food would
not hold out for another week and there
was a gale coming. Aipolar storm will
sometimes blow for ten days without a
break, and all that time It Is certain
death to be abroad. Kotuko laid up a
snownouse large enough to take In the
hand sleigh it is never wise to be sepa
rated from your meat and while he
was shaping the last irregular block of
ice that makes the keystone of the roof
he saw a thing looking at him from a
little cliff of ice half a mile away. The
air was hazy and the thing seemed to
be forty feet long and ten feet high with
twenty feet of tail and a shape that
quivered all along the outlines. The
girl saw tt .too but Instead of crying
aloud with terror said quietly: "That
is Qulquern. What comes after?"
"IHe will speak to me," said Kotuko,
but the snow-knife trembled In bis
hand as he spoke, because, however
much a man may believe that he Is a
friend of strange and ugly spirits he
seldom likes 'to be taken alt his word.
The Qulqneurn too, is the phantom of
a gigantic toothless dog without any
haiir who is supposed to live In the far
north and to wander about the country
Just before things are going to happen.
They may be pleasant or unpleasant
things, but not even the angekok care
to speak about Qulquern. He makes
the -dogs go mad. Like Splrltbear he
has several extra pairs of legs six or
eight and this thing jumping up and
down in the haze 'had more legs than
any real dog needs.
Kotuko and the gtrl huddled Into
their hist quickly. Of course, If Qul
quern had wanted them he could have
tern It to pieces above their heads, tout
Ithe sense of a foot-thick snow-wall be
tween themselves and the wicked dark
was a great comfcwit. Tlhe Kale broke
with a i.lhi'I'ek of wind caught In the
jagged Ice, like 'the shriek of a train,
oir.'d for three days and three nights It
het'd, never varying one point and never
lulling even for a minute. They fed
the stone tamp between their knees and
nibbled at the seals' meat, and
watched the black soot gather on
the roof for seventyJtwo long hours.
The birl courted' up the food in the
eleigh; there was not more than three
days' supply, and Kotuko looked over
the Iron heads and the deer-sinew fast
enings of his harpoon and his seal-hook
and hla bird-dart. There was nothing
else to do.
"We sihall fro to Sedna soon very
soon,' the lrl whispered. "In four
days we sha1 He down and go. Will
your tornaq do nothing? Blng her an
angekok's song to make her come
here."
He began to sing In the hlgh-pltehcd
howl of the manc songs, and the gale
went down slowly. In the middle of
his song the girl started, laid her mlt
tened hand and then her head to the
Ice floor of the hut.. Katuko followed
her example and the -two kneeled star
ing Into each other's eyes and Mstenlng
with every nerve. He ripped a thin
silver of whalebone from the rim of s,
bird snare tihat lay on the sleigh and
after straightening set It up upright in
a little bole In the Ice, firming it down
with his mitten. It was almost as deli
cately adjusted as a compass needle,
and now, Instead of ' listening, they
waitdhed. The thin rod quivering a lit
tlethe least little Jar In the world
then It vllwated steadily for a few sec
onds. Tame to resrt and vibrated again,
this time nodding to another point of
th" compass.
"Too soon!" said Kcituko. ."Some big
floe has broken far away outside ",
The girl pointed at the rod and shook
her fhead. "It to a breaking." she said.
"Listen to the grcund-loe? It knocks "
Wlhen they kneeled this time they
heard th nvst curious muffled grunts,
and knocking under their feet. Some
Times It eounded as though a .blind
puppy were squeaking above the lamp;
ti'iejn as If a stone were being ground on
hard ice; and again dike muffled blows
on a drum, but all dragged out and
Trade rrnaH as though they traveled
through a Hlltle horn a weary distance
away.
"We shall not go to Sedna lying
down " said Kotuko. "It Is a breaking.
The tornaq bas cheated us. We shall
die.
All this may sound absurd enough.'
bu't the two were face to face with a
w iwi uangff. Tne three days'
gale had driven the deep water to Baf
fin's bay southerly and piled it on the
' . . : LlkThlns In n Klghtniars.
edge of the far-reaching .land Ice that
stretches frcm . Bylot's Island to the
west. Also tthe strong current which
sots cut of Lancaster sound carried
.r!tb It mites .nd miles of what they
call puck-ice, rough, ice that has not
frozen Into fields; am) this pack was
bombarding the floe at tlhe tame time
that tfho swell and heave of the storm
worked sea was weakening and under
mining It. What Kotuko and the girl
had been listening to were the faint
edhocs of that fight thirty or foty miles
away, while the Uttle rod quivered- to
the shock of it.
Now, as rhe Imilt say, when ithe Ice
once wakes after its long winter sleep
there Is no knowing what may happen,
for solid floe-Ice changes shape us
swiftly as a cloud. The gale was, evi
dently a spring gale sent out of time
and anything was possible.
Yet the two were happier In their
minds than before. If the floe-broke
up there would be ho more wafting and
suffering. Spirits, goblins and witch
people were moving about on the rack
ing Ice and they might find themselves
"That Is Qulquern."
steeping Into Scdna's country side by
side with all sorts of wild things, the
flush of excitement still on them. When
they left the hut after the gale the noise
on the horizon was steadily growing
and the tough Ice moaned end buzzed
all around them.
"It is still waiting," said Kotuko.
CHAPTER IV.
On the top of a hummock sat or
crouched the eight-legged thing that
they had seen three days before; and
it howled horribly. .
"iLet us follow," eald the girl. "It
may know some way that does not lead
to Sedna," but she reeled from weak
ness as she took the pulling rope. The
thing moved oft' slowly and clumsily
across the ridges, heading always
toward the westward and the land, and
they followed while the growling thun
der at the edge of the floe rolled nearer
and nearer. The floe's Up was spilt and
cracked Ini every direction for three or
four miles Inland and great pans of
ten-foot thick ice, from a few yards to
twenty acres square, were jolting and
ducking and Bulging Into one another
and into the yet unbroken lloe as the
heavy swell took and shook and spouted
between them. The battering-ram ice
was, so to speak, the first army t'nat the
sea -was flinging against the lloe. The
incessant crash and Jar of these cakes
almost drowned the ripping oiivd of
sheets of pack ice being Ofiven bodily
under the floe as cards are hastily
pushed under a tablecloth. Where the
water was shallow these sheets would
be piled one aton of another till the bottom-most
touched mud fifty feet down
and the dlsoclored sea banked behind
the muddy Ice till the Increasing pres
sure drove all forward again. The many
ehallows and sand banks on the north
cast coast of Bylot's island made it
Impossible to foretell the course of the
rushing Ice. For instance. In addition
tn the floe and the pack Ice, the gale
and the currents were bringing down
true bergs, sailing mountains cf Ic-?,
snapped off by the frost from the Green
land side of the water or the north
shore of 'Melville bay. They pounded
In solemnly from the offing, the waves
breaking white round them, and ad
vanced on the floe like an old-time fleet
uncior full sail. But a berg that seemed
ready to carry the world before It would
ground helplessly In deep water, reel
over and wallow In a lather of foam
and mud and flying frozen spray, while
a much smaller and lower berg would
rip and ride Into the flat Ice, flinging
tons of Ice on either side and cutting a
track a mile long before It was stopped.
The bergs were -perhaps the most ter
rible things to watch, because their
towers and pinnacles would 'fall after
the shock of collision. Some fell like
swords, shearing a rnw-edfted canal
through the floe; and others, falling on
hard Ice, could not break through It,
but splintered Into a shower of blocks
weighing score of tons apiece that
whirled and circled among the hum
mocks. Others again rose shoaled,
twisted as though In pain and fell
solidly on their sides, while the sen
thrashed over their shoulders. This
trampling and crowding of the Ice Into
every possible shape was going on as
far as the eye could reach ail along
tho north line of the floe. From where
Kotuko and the girl were the confusion
looked no more than an uneasy, rip
pling, crawllnff movement under the
horizon, but Ifccame towards them each
moment and they could hear far away
to the landward a heavy booming, as It
might have been the boom of artil
lery through a fog. T'hat'showed that
tho floe was being jammed against the
Iron cliffs of Bylot's Island, the land to
the southward, behind them.
"This has never been before," said
Kotuko, staring stupidly. - "This Is not
the time. How can tho 'floe break
now?"
"Follow .that!" the girl cried, point
Ins to the thing, half limping, half run
ning, distractedly 'before them. They
followed, tugging at the hand sleigh,
while nearer and nearer came the roar
ing march of the ice. At last tlhe fltflds
round them cracked and slanted In
every direction and the crackes opened
and snapped like the teeth of wolves.
But where the thing rested, on.-a mound
of old and scattered Ice blocks some
fifty feet high, there was no motion.
Koiuko leaped forward wildly, dragged
the girl after liim and crawled to the
bottom of the mound. The talking of
tho Ice grew louder and louder round
them, but the mound stayed fast, and
as the girl looked at him he threw his
right elbow upwards and outwards,
making the Inuit sign for land In the
shape of an Island. Any land It was
that the eight-legged limping thing had
led them to some granite-tipped sand
beached Islet off the coast, shod and
sheathed and masked with Ice so that
no man could have told It from the floe,
but at the bottom solid earth and not
shifting, drifting ice. The smashing
and rebound of the .floes, as they
grounded and splintered, marked the
borders of it, and a friendly shoal ran
out to the northward and turned aside
the rush of the heaviest ice exectly as a
plowshare turns the loani. There was
a danger, of course, that some heavily
squeezed Ice 'Held might s-hnc'i up the
beach and plane eff the -top of f.ie Isk-t
bodily but that did not trouble Kotuko
and tho girl when they made their
snowhouie and began to cat and Cieurd
the Ice crack and hammer and Skid
along the beach. The thing had disap
peared and Kotuko was talking excited
ly about his Knowledge of and power
over spirits as he crouched over the
lamp. In the middle of his wild say
ing the girl began to lau&h- and rock
herself backwards and forwards. "
Behind her shoulder, crawling Into
tho hut crawl by crawl, there wer two
heads one yellow and one black tha t
belonged to twoif the mopt sorrowful
and ashamed dogs that you ever saw.
Kotuko, the dog, was one. and the black
leader was tho other. Both were now
fat, well-looking and quite restored to
their proper minds, bult coupled to eanh
other In an . extraordinary fashion.
Wheri the black leader ran off, you re
member, bis harness was stlil on him.
He must have met Kotuka and played
or fought with him, Tor his shoulder
loop baa caught In the plaited copper
.t . i . ,
wire of Kotukos collar and had drawn
tight so that neither dog could get at
the trace to gnaw It apart, but was fas
tened pldeloiig to his neighbor's neck.
The girl pushed the. two shamefaced
creatures toward Kotuko, and, sub
bing w'ith laughter, cried: "That is'
Quiquern which led us to eafe ground.
Look at his eight legs and double head."
Kotuko cut them free, and they fell
into his. aims, yellow and black to
gether, trying to explain how they had
got their senses buvk again. Kotuko
ran a hand down their ribs, which were
round und well ctatlied. "They have
found food," he said wHt'h a grin. "I
do not Hhink we t:.iall go to edna so
soon. lly tornaq sent these. The
sickness has left them."
As E3oa as they had greeted Kotuko
these two who had been forced to sleep
and eat and hunt together for the
past few mor.'ths flew at each other's
throat and there was a beautiful battle
In Kie snow house. "Empty dogs do
not figivt," Kotuko said. "They have
found the seal. Let us sleen. We shall
find foud."
When they waked there was open wa
ter on the north beach of the Island
and all the loosened lee had been driven
landward. The first sound of the surf
Is one of the most delightful that the
I'nuit can bear, for ft means that spring
Is on the road. Kotuko and the girl
took hands and smiled, for the clear ful
rear of taie surge among the ice re
minded them of salmon and reindeer
time and the smell of blossoming
ground willows. Even ii they looked
the fv-'i began to sldm over between
the lloating cakes of ice, bo Intense
was the cold, but on the horizon there
was a. vast red glare that was the light
of the sunken sun. It was more like
hearing him yawn In his sleep than
seeing him rhee. and the glare only
lasted for an bour or two, but It marked
the turn of the year. Nothing, they
felt, could alter that
Kotuko found' the dogs fighting over
a fresh-killed stal who was following
1tie fish tihat a gale always distuitbs.
He was the first of some twenty of thir
ty seal that Osr.dod on the Island in.
the course of a day nnd. till the sea,
froro hard, there were bundreds of keen
black heads rejoicing In the shallow
free water and flouting about with the
floating i'je.
It was good to eat seal-liver again;
to 1111 the lamps rreikleae'Iy with blubber
and watch (tie flame 'Maze 'three feet In
tho a'ir, but as sxfon as the new sea
ice tore Kotuko and the tgliT loaded the
hand-Flelgh and made 'the two dogs pull
as they had never pulled before in
t'nelr lives, for they feared what mlaht
have happened In their village. "Hie
weather, of course. Was as pitiless as
usual, but H Is tasler to draw a sleigh
load, d w ith good food than to hunt
starving. They left five and twenty
sonl caic.if-nes burled .in the Ice nf the
beach already foru? nnd hurried back
to their peopb. The do?s showed
fnem lihe way as soon as Kotuko told
tin m what was expected, and though
there was no sipn of a Inndmatk, for
two days they wre giving tongue out
side Kad'lu's ih-oi.-se. Only three dogs
answered them; the others had hwn
eaten; nnd the houses .were all dirk.
'Hut .when Kotuko shouted: "Oo!"
'"boiled meat) weak voices answered,
and when he called the cnll of the vil
lage name by name, very distinctly,
there were.no gnps In it.
An hour later the lamps blazed In
Kadlu's house, snow water was mol't
In;r. the pots were beginning to simmer
and t'.ie snow was drifting irom the
roof at -Amoraq made ready a meal for
all tho village, and the boy babv in the
hood e'hewed at a strip of rich nutty
blubber nnd the hunters slowlv nnd
methndlolly .filled themselves t'. th
very 'brim with senl-meat. Kotuko and
the girl told their tale. The two dogs
sat bvOwcen them, nnd whenever their
names came In they cocked nn enr
apiece nnd looked mcit 1'honnghly
ashamed of themselves. A do? who has
once gone mad the Inuit fay is tafe
against all attacks.
"vo tho te.rnan d,!d not forget uV
Mid Kotuko. "The Ftorm hbw; the
ice broke and the seal swam in, behind
the fibii that were f rlgivrened -by the
storm. NTow the new seal iholcs are not
two days' distant. ,'I.et the good hunt
ers go tomorrow and bring back the
Yellow and Dlnck Together.
seal I have spared twenty-five seal
burled In the Ice. When we have ealten
(those we will all follow the seal on the
iloe."
"What do you do?" said the angekok.
the sorcerer, In the same sort ot voice
as he used to Kadlu, the richest of .Uho
Tunumirmlut.
Kadlu looked at the girl from the
north and said qiLlotly: "We build a
house." He pointed to the northwest
side of Kadlu's house for that Is ths
side on wbiu'tt the married son or daugh
ter always dives.
The girl turned .her bands palm up
wards with a little despairing shake of
her head. Phe was a foreigner, picked
up carving and she could biHng noth
ing to the housekeeping.
Amoraq jumped from the bench where
she sat and began to sweep things
into the girl's lup stone-lamps. Iron
skin scrapers, tin kettles, deerskins em
broidered with musk-ox teetlh and real
canvas needles such as sailors use the
11 nest dowry tlmt has ever been given
on the far edge nf the Arctic circle, and
the girl from the north bowed her head
to the very floor.
"Also these," raid Kotuko, laughing
and Kinging to the dogs, who thrust
their cold muzzles Into the girl s face.
. . . . - .1.,.!, .,..., an itYtm
An, saiu me MRfi
portant cough, as though he had been
thinking It all over. "As soon as Ko
tuko left the village. I went to the sing
ing house and sang magic: I sang all
the long nights and called upon the
spirits of the reindeer. My singing
made the gale blow that broke the Ice
and drew the two dogs towards Kotuko
when the ice would have crushed his
bones. My song drew the seal in be
hind the broken Ice. My body lay still
in the quassi. but my spirit ran about
on the ice and guided Kotuko and the
dogs In all the things they did. 'I did
"Everybody was very full and sleepy
ro no one contradicted; and the ange
kok helped himst'lf to yet another
lump of 'boiled meat and lay down to'
sh-ep with the others. In the wara
we'l-'ilgWied, oil-pmelllng house.
..
, No'-.v Kotuko. who drew very well in
the Inult way, scratched pictures of
all there adventures on a long flat
pb'?e cf I'.VJiy with a- le at ene end.
When he ar.d the glru went north to
Ellef mere land In the year of the won
dcii'ul open winter 'he left the ptojure
Ftoiy with KaeTu, who lost It In the
r'.v'i'Klc when his dog-slcigh broke
down one summon on the beach of
takn .Vetolllnir at NIkeslrlnir o.nd
there a lake Inult found It next .
pprlfS an f'd It to a man at Imlgen.
who was Interpreter on a Cumberland
sound whaler, and he sold U to Hans
Olsen, who was sailor on board a bht
tftramor that took tourists to the
North cape tn Norway. When the
tourists' season was over the steamer
ran between London and Australia,
jipplng at Ceylon, and there Olsen
loH'.the Ivory to an Angalese Jeweler
who sold Imitation cat's eye sapphires.
I found It under some rubbish In his
houpe at Colombo, and with Hwns' help
I translated tt front one end to ttM
other- v ' i ,'..-