CHAPTER XXII
THE FROZEN NORTH
THE FROZEN NORTH
THE FROZEN NORTH
Suddenly finding themselves tired of exploring their novel quarters and realizing that they were exhausted, the boys gathered skins together and laid them upon the floor of the snow hut, reserving one apiece for covering.
Then they lay down on what seemed to them the most comfortable beds they had ever known.
It was not till they were delightfully snug and comfortable that Billy had the disquieting idea that somebody really ought to get up and put out the lights. These consisted of three oil lamps that threw a mellow and not unpleasant light about the room.
Billy’s suggestion was received with a storm of uncomplimentary remarks.
“But we can’t leave ’em burning all night,” persisted Billy, when the riot had somewhat subsided.
“Do it yourself then,” said Fred drowsily; he was already more than half asleep.
“And for the love of Pete, stop making so much noise,” added Mouser pathetically. “I’ve got to sleep.”
“Suppose you do it, Sleepyhead,” retorted Billy, turning so that the light from the lamp nearest him would not shine in his eyes. “You’re nearest them—”
With a sigh Bobby threw off his fur blanket and got up.
“I suppose I’m the goat, as usual,” he complained. “If I didn’t start something, you fellows would still be arguing to-morrow morning.”
And then, when all the lights were out and the blessed dark enveloped them, some one said they ought to have some ventilation.
“Say,” said Fred, raising himself belligerently on one elbow, “if anybody wants more air in this shebang he can go dig in the snow himself. I’m going to sleep.”
“Who says we need more air?” Bobby demanded sleepily. “Didn’t you see that four-inch hole in the roof of the igloo? That’s supposed to let in all the fresh air we need. Now, if anybody says another word, I’m going to pitch him out into the snow and let the polar bears get him. Goodnight!”
It is to be supposed that this threat silenced the boys. At any rate, no more suggestions of any sort were heard from them that night.
However, with the first feeble rays of daylight filtering through the ice that served as windows they were awake, feeling enormously refreshed by their good night’s sleep and healthily ready for anything that might happen.
“I feel as if I could tackle a polar bear right now,” boasted Fred, holding out his good right arm and feeling proudly of his muscle. “Boy, what I wouldn’t do to him!”
“Boy, what I wouldn’t do with his carcass,” added Billy, sniffing the air hungrily. “I wonder if there’s any of that stew left?”
He went over to the pot and peered in, giving a whoop of joy.
“Lots of it,” he cried. “Who’s with me?”
“Better wait a while,” Bobby counseled. “Maybe Mrs. Eskimo wants the stew for dinner. Anyway, I had enough last night. I’d like a change of diet this morning.”
“My, listen to him!” exclaimed Fred, grinning. “Ain’t he fussy? Say, what do you think this is, Bobby? A hotel or something?”
“Maybe our friends won’t come back at all,” ventured Mouser. “And then I bet we’d be pretty glad to eat stew.”
But he had hardly finished speaking when the Eskimo woman arrived.
She came in attired just as she had left the night before, and the boys wondered if she had slept that way all night.
She grinned good-naturedly and went about the business of preparing breakfast as though she were used to having four strange boys as visitors every day of the week.
The boys watched her admiringly as she prepared meal and cut bread in thick slabs for the table. They hung about her eager to help, and her perpetual grin widened as she gave them various small chores to do. She had on hand some provisions brought from the trading station.
When the breakfast was almost ready the two Eskimo men came in, completing the party. They brought with them many things from the longboat.
When the boys, having satisfied their ravenous appetites, tried to thank the Eskimos for their timely help, the latter looked so painfully embarrassed and ill at ease that the boys had to stop.
However, despite the natural backwardness of the natives to speak about themselves, Bobby, by careful questioning, managed to find out something about these people who had befriended them.
The two male Eskimos were father and son and the woman of the wide, good-natured grin, was none other than the wife and mother of the household.
It was the older Eskimo who had spoken to Bobby the night before and promised to take them to see the guide Mooloo. The younger native seemed even more taciturn and uncommunicative than his father; so quiet was he, in fact, that the boys often forgot that he was around.
The name of the older man, as near as they could get it, was Kapje, but they never found out what the other two members of the family were called.
Breakfast over, Kapje became communicative to the point of saying that although the snowstorm had not developed into the blizzard he had expected, it was still snowing so heavily that it would be unwise to try to find the guide Mooloo that day.
“To-morrow,” he said heavily. “Maybe next day. No can tell. Snow, she stop—we go!”
And despite all their arguing and pleading, the boys could not move him a step from that resolution.
“Might as well try to move that five-foot snow wall outside,” Billy had muttered to Bobby in an aside, and Bobby had nodded understanding.
Although he was sensible enough to believe that Kapje knew his business, the delay was hard to bear. If he had had only himself to consider it is probable he would have decided to take his chance in the storm, but they could do nothing without the Eskimo’s help.
Of course, they might seek out some of the other natives, but they would probably think the same as Kapje about starting out in a threatened blizzard. And, anyway, Bobby knew that he and the other boys owed more than they could ever hope to pay to the Eskimo and his son and he did not want to anger them.
After breakfast the boys determined they’d like to have a look around them, but when they started to put on the coats they had worn the night before, Kapje grunted a protest and pointed to a pile of fur clothing which the boys had not noticed till that moment.
“Clothes no good—no keep cold out,” said the Eskimo scornfully. “I bring you fur. See! This way you wear ’em.”
While the boys, voicelessly grateful for the Eskimo’s kindness, looked on with interest, Kapje held up the clothing he had brought for them.
“See,” he explained. “This your undershirt.” It was a garment made of fawn skin and designed to be worn with the hair in, next the body. “You put that on first, you see. Then this pants and coat made of caribou skins, and these boots, they keep the legs warm. Seal skin, you know—maybe? An’ these stockings, also of the seal skin, yes? Fur keep you warm always. Wool, never.”
Then, as though embarrassed at this, for him, remarkably long speech, the Eskimo turned and left the place before the boys could thank him.
Eagerly the boys examined the strange fur garments. There was a complete outfit, one for each of them, even including mittens of caribou or seal.
Their inspection was interrupted by the woman who led the way to one end of the igloo and pushed aside a heavy skin, revealing a low arched doorway, the existence of which the boys had never suspected up to this moment.
The woman motioned them inside, showing again her friendly grin.
“Put on fur,” she said. “An’ you never be cold again. Fur very warm—like fire.”
“Oh, boy!” cried Fred, as he hurriedly flung off his own clothing and stepped into the undergarment of fawn skin. “I’ll say this is the life. Some good old scout, our friend Kapje!”
“You bet he is!” exclaimed Bobby, warmly. “I only wish we had some way to pay him for all he is doing for us.”
“Oh, we’ll pay him all right,” cried Billy exuberantly. “When we get the treasure we’ll divide up fifty-fifty.”
“Say, not so loud, not so loud,” cried Fred, scornfully. “What’s the matter with you, you old stewed prune? Do you want to give our secret away?”
“Oh, say! I forgot,” cried Billy penitently. “Honest I did, fellows. I wonder if anybody heard it.”
“We’ll hope not,” said Bobby, adding, as he pulled on the caribou pants: “But seriously, fellows, we’d better be pretty careful what we say. If we can once get what we’re after, we can be generous. But until then, the least said, soonest mended.”
And when, attired in fur from head to foot, the boys stepped out into the bitter world of ice and snow that surrounded the igloo, they realized how true had been Kapje’s statement that fur was the only sensible or practical clothing for a climate where the thermometer often fell to sixty degrees below zero.
The cold, which would have found its way irresistibly through porous woolen clothing, no matter how heavy it might be, attacked in vain their impenetrable suits of fur.
It was a glorious feeling. To know, by the way your nose felt and by your watering eyes how bitterly cold it was and yet not to suffer any actual discomfort.
They felt as though that grim North which had swallowed up so many adventurous travelers from warmer places had suddenly turned friendly to them. They loved even the snow that fell thickly and heavily, powdering them in no time with a thick covering of white.
“We look like Santa Claus,” chuckled Bobby. “No wonder the dear old boy is supposed to make his home up this way. I feel as if we ought to come across him any minute with his reindeer and sleigh.”
“I wish we would,” said Billy. “Maybe he’d take us to see Mooloo. Look,” he added. “Isn’t that our old college chum Kapje coming toward us?”
Clearing their eyes of the snow that blinded them, they peered ahead and found that it was Kapje looking like a white grizzly bear in his snow-covered furs.
He was heading for the igloo the boys had just left, and when Bobby called out to him he halted in evident impatience.
“No can wait,” he called through the brittle air. “Fin’ big walrus. Walrus no wait Eskimo.” With which peculiar words he disappeared inside the igloo.
“Say, fellows,” cried Billy, his eyes as big as saucers, “I’ll bet he’s going to hunt walrus.”
“Well, if he is,” said Bobby joyfully, “you can just bet we’re going, too!”