CHAPTER XXI
IN THE ESKIMO HUT
IN THE ESKIMO HUT
IN THE ESKIMO HUT
Never would the boys forget the music of those words—or the taste of that stew.
While they flung off the snow-covered great coats taken from the locker of Captain Garrish’s ship, the Eskimo woman ladled up great bowls full of the steaming stew and the two natives who had led them to the place brought low stools up to the fire and joined them in their feast.
And what a feast it was! The boys came back for a third helping of stew, and still there seemed to be an unlimited supply in the great black pot.
And delicious! Never before had they tasted anything quite to compare with it.
They asked what it was made of and the Eskimos with broad grins of delight at their enjoyment replied in broken English that it was made of the flesh of the polar bear.
“Polar bear!” cried Fred, pausing with a spoon filled to overflowing with stew, half raised to his mouth. “Great Scott! do you have many of them around here?”
One of the Eskimos shook his head sadly.
“Not so many we like,” he said. “They go furder an’ furder north all time.”
Fred looked disappointed.
“Tough luck,” he said. “I was hoping we might have a friendly little row with one of them while we were in this neighborhood.”
“Cheer up,” said Bobby, happily digging into his third dish of stew. “After the luck we had to-night anything good may happen to us.”
“Well,” broke in Billy, with a comical look of alarm, “if you call coming to grips with a polar bear good luck, I’d like to know your idea of bad luck!”
“Listen at him!” mourned Mouser.
“And after he knows what good stew they make, too,” added Fred.
“Oh, I’ve nothing against the stew—” began Billy, at which Bobby broke in with a grin: “We’ve noticed that.” He then turned to the Eskimo who sat nearest him. “We’re looking for a man named Mooloo,” he said eagerly. “Do you know him?”
The Eskimo grunted and nodded his head. He was feeling too comfortable and full of stew to be loquacious.
“I know heem,” he said. “Heem good feller.”
Bobby felt like clapping the stolid native joyfully on the back at this unexpected good fortune. But with a great effort he stifled his enthusiasm, seeing that Billy and Fred and Mouser were also trying to conceal their eagerness.
During the course of the conversation, carried on very brokenly by the Eskimos, the boys found out that they had learned English at a trading station many miles away—a station at which ships occasionally stopped for furs and for live specimens of seals and polar bears.
It would never do to let the natives guess at the boys’ real reason for wanting to find Mooloo. They might be thoroughly good fellows, but it was very doubtful whether they could be trusted with news of the treasure.
At thought of it Bobby felt still more exhilarated, triumphant. They had successfully accomplished the first and, probably, the most difficult stage of their adventure.
Their escape from the ship had succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Now, if they proceeded carefully there was no reason why they should not succeed in the second phase of the adventure—the finding of Chief Takyak’s treasure.
He wanted to question the Eskimo and try to find out, if he could, if he, as well as the guide Mooloo, knew the location of the wrecked treasure ship.
But caution made him hold his tongue, merely getting from the Eskimo his promise to lead him to Mooloo on the following day.
“If the storm do not keep us here,” the native had added, with a sage wag of his head. “Blizzard maybe. No can leave igloo four, five days—maybe longer.”
At his words the boys looked at each other in dismay. Delay was what they wanted least. Up to that moment they had not thought of the storm as possibly delaying their treasure hunt for days, perhaps indefinitely.
And, then, there was the thought of those at home who had no means of knowing what had become of their boys. If they could not get word south very soon their people would be forced to give them up as lost.
This consideration kept them silent and thoughtful until the Eskimos rose sluggishly to their feet and began moving about the place as though they were preparing to leave.
This brought home to the boys the fact that they also had no place to spend the night and they also got to their feet, looking rather questioningly and dubiously at the natives.
It was the woman who came to their rescue with her friendly wide-mouthed grin.
“You no go out in blizzard,” she said, with a wave of her pudgy hand toward the out-of-doors. “You die. You stay here in igloo—safe, warm, eh?”
“But you? How about you?” stammered Bobby. “Where will you go?”
The woman shrugged her fat shoulders as she wrapped herself in a heavy fur coat and pulled a seal hood down over her ears so that only her eyes and nose and mouth were visible.
“You no worry ’bout us,” she said comfortably. “We all right. We got other igloo—two or three. We no die in snow.”
And with another friendly grin she turned and left the snow house, followed by the two men, who merely grunted their good-byes.
“Well, I’ll be jiggered!” cried Fred explosively. “Who says the Eskimo is an unfriendly beggar, I’d like to know! From this time on, if anybody says anything to me against an Eskimo, I’ll show him where he gets off, all right.”
“Giving us our dinner for nothing and then giving up their house for the night to a bunch of strangers!” marveled Mouser. “Well, I’ll say they’re regular sports, all right.”
“You bet,” said Billy. “How do they know we’re not a bunch of crooks?”
“Mouser, I’m surprised at you,” said Fred gravely. “All they have to do is look at us to tell we’re honest. Where are you going, Bobby?”
For Bobby had turned toward the door and brushed away the skins that covered it.
“Going to have a look at that blizzard,” he answered, “to see what our prospects are for to-morrow.”
The other boys followed him, but they were met by a driving gust of wind and snow that drove them back to the shelter of the igloo again.
“Some storm!” whistled Bobby, as they instinctively moved over to the stove where the fire was still hot. “Hate to be adrift in it without a home to-night, fellows.”
“But that’s just where we were only a few hours ago,” Mouser reminded him soberly. “We couldn’t have lasted much longer in that open boat.”
“Forget it, can’t you?” protested Fred uncomfortably. “Just the memory of it makes me cold. Say, this fire feels good.”
“Wonder what dear old Captain Garrish is doing just now,” said Bobby dreamily, as they toasted their feet and hands over the grateful warmth of the stove.
“Better wonder what he’s saying,” chuckled Billy. “I bet he hasn’t any vocabulary left.”
“We sure left just in the nick of time, too,” remarked Fred thoughtfully. “I bet he was cooking up a way of making us tell what we knew.”
“Shouldn’t wonder,” said Bobby, and then told them what the hairy-faced giant on the ship had advised him to do.
The boys were intensely interested.
“Even the men knew Garrish had it in for us,” Bobby continued, adding with a chuckle: “But I bet this particular man didn’t expect us to take his advice and ‘beat it’ quite so quickly.”
“We’d probably be in prison now in the hold, eating hardtack out of the boxes to keep from starving,” said Mouser, and they looked at him reproachfully.
“Why remind us of such unpleasant things?” protested Billy, but Bobby came to Mouser’s defense.
“As far as I’m concerned,” he said, “I don’t mind a bit thinking about where we might be now. It makes this place seem even better by comparison. Say, fellows, did you ever dream a house made of snow could be so comfortable?”
“It sure beats me,” agreed Fred, beginning to wander about the room, examining the skins that hung on the walls. He drew one or two of them aside, disclosing the solid white wall of snow. “All the comforts of home!” exclaimed Bobby.