All of a sudden there was a loud cracking noise, and Menie felt the ice moving under him! He looked back. There was a tiny strip of blue water between him and the shore!
The strip grew wider while he looked at it! Menie knew that he was adrift on an ice raft, and he was terribly frightened. Nip and Tup cuddled close to him and whined with fear.
Menie understood perfectly well that he might be carried far out to sea and never come back any more. He put his hands to his mouth and yelled with all his might!
Koko was still following the birds, and did not hear Menie's cries. Menie could see him running up the beach after the birds, and he could see his father working over his kyak near his home.
He even saw Monnie come out of the tunnel and go to watch her father at his work. They seemed very far away, and every moment the distance between them and the raft grew greater.
Menie screamed again and again. At the third scream he saw his father straighten up, shade his eyes with his hand, and look out to sea.
"Oh," Menie thought. "What if he shouldn't see me!" He shouted louder than ever! He waved his arms! He even pinched the tails of Nip and Tup and made them bark. Then he saw his father wave his hand and dive into the tunnel.
In another instant he was out again and pulling on his skin coat. Then he took the kyak on his shoulders and ran with it to the beach. Monnie and Koolee came running after him.
They were doing the screaming now! Every one in the village heard the screams and came running down to the beach, too.
When Menie saw his father coming with the kyak, he wasn't afraid any more, for he was sure his father would save him. He wasn't even afraid about the cakes of ice that were floating in the water, though there is nothing more dangerous than to go out in a kyak among ice floes. One bump from a floating cake of ice is enough to upset any boat, and I don't like to think of what might happen if a kyak should get between two big cakes of ice.
Kesshoo ran with his kyak as far as he could on the ice. Then he got in and fitted the bottom of his skin jacket over the kyak hole and carefully slid himself into the open water.
Once in the water, how his paddle flew!
It seemed to Menie as if his father would never reach him! He sat very still on the ice pan with the dead seal beside him, and Nip and Tup huddled up against him.
At last Kesshoo came near enough so he could make Menie hear everything he said. "Menie," he cried, "if you do exactly what I tell you to, I can save you.
"I will throw you my harpoon. You must drive it way down into the ice. Then by the harpoon line I will tow your ice pan back toward shore. When we get to the big ice I will find a place for you to land.
"You must be ready, and when I give the word jump from your ice raft on to the solid ice."
Then Kesshoo threw his harpoon, and Menie drove it into the ice with all his might. Slowly Kesshoo drew the line taut, turned his kyak round, and started for the shore. The journey out had been dangerous, but the journey back was much more so, for Kesshoo could not dodge the floating ice nearly so well. He had to pick his way carefully through the clearest water he could find. Very cautiously they moved toward shore.
They were getting quite near the place where the ice had broken with Menie, when suddenly, right near them, they saw the head and great, round eyes of a seal! It was the seal mother.
She had come back to find her breathing hole and her baby.
The moment Kesshoo saw her he seized his dart, which lay in its place on top of his kyak, and threw it with all his might at the seal.
The seal dived down into the sea, but a bladder full of air was attached to the line on the dart, and this bladder floated on the water, so Kesshoo could tell by watching it just where the seal was.
Kesshoo knew he had struck the seal, and although he was already towing the ice raft, he was determined to bring home the big seal, too!
He called to Menie. "Sit still and wait until I come for you."
Then he quickly cut the harpoon line by which he was towing the ice raft, and set it adrift again. As soon as he was free he paddled away after the bladder, which was now bobbing along over the water at some little distance from the boat.
Menie sat perfectly still and watched his father. Kesshoo reached the bladder and began to pull on the line, but just at that moment the big seal turned round and swam right under the kyak!
In a second the kyak turned bottom side up in the water! Menie screamed. The people watching on the shore gave a great howl, and Koko's father started up the beach after his own kyak.
He thought perhaps Kesshoo could not manage both the ice raft and the seal, and he meant to go to help him.
But in one second Kesshoo was right side up again. No water could get into the kyak because Kesshoo's skin coat was drawn tight over the hole in the deck, and Kesshoo was in the coat!
Kesshoo often turned somersaults in the water in that way. Sometimes he even did it for fun! He said afterward that he could have turned the boat right side up again with just his nose, without using either his paddle or his arms, if only his nose had been a little bigger, and though he meant this for a joke, the twins believed that he really could do it.
The moment he was right side up again, Kesshoo gave chase once more to the bladder. The seal was very weak now, and Kesshoo knew that it would soon come to the surface and float and that then he could tow it in.
He had not long to wait. The bladder bobbed about for a while and then was still. Kesshoo drew up the line, and paddled back to the ice raft, towing the big seal after him.
"Catch this," he said to Menie. He threw him the end of the line. "Wind the line six times round the harpoon," he said, "and hold tight to the end of it."
Menie did as he was told. Then Kesshoo tied together the two ends of the harpoon line, which he had cut, and began to tow the ice raft back to share again.
Menie kept tight hold of the other line and towed the seal!
Kesshoo paddled slowly and carefully along, until at last there was only a little strip of water between the kyak and the solid ice.
But how in the world could Menie get across that strip of water to safety?
The kyak was between him and the solid ice, and Menie could not possibly get into the kyak. Neither could he swim. But Kesshoo knew a way.
He came up closer to the solid ice. Then he gave a great sweep with his paddle and lifted his kyak right up on to it. He sprang out, and, seizing the harpoon line, pulled Menie's raft close up to the edge of the firm ice.
Menie was still holding tight to the line that held the big seal. Kesshoo threw him another line. Menie caught the end of it.
"Now tie the big seal's line fast to that," Kesshoo said. Menie was a very small boy, but he knew how to tie knots. He did just what his father told him to.
"Now," said his father, "pull up the harpoon." Menie did so. "Tie the harpoon line to the little seal." Menie did that. "Now throw the harpoon to me," commanded Kesshoo.
Menie threw it with all his might. His father caught it, and stood on the firm ice, holding in his hands the line that the big seal was tied to, and the harpoon, with its line fastened to the little seal.
"Now hold on to the little seal, and I will pull you right up against the solid ice, and when I say 'Jump,' you jump," said Kesshoo.
Slowly and very, carefully he pulled, until the raft grated against the solid ice.
"Jump!" shouted Kesshoo.
Menie jumped. The ice raft gave a lurch that nearly sent him into the water, but Kesshoo caught him and pulled him to safety.
A great shout of joy went up from the shore, and Menie was glad enough to shout too when he felt solid ice under his feet once more!
While he helped his father pull in the little seal, all the people came running out on to the ice to meet them, but Kesshoo sent back every one except Koko's father. He was afraid the ice might break again with so many people on it. Koko's father helped pull the big seal out of the water and over the ice to the beach.
Menie dragged his own little seal after him by the harpoon line, and when he came near the beach, the people all cried out, "See the great hunter with his game!" And Koolee was so glad to see Menie and so proud of her boy that she nearly burst with joy!
"I knew the charm would work," she cried. "Not only does he spy bears—he kills seals! And he only five years old!"
She put her arms around him and pressed her flat nose to his. That's the Eskimo way of kissing.
Menie tried to look as if he killed seals and got carried away on an ice pan every day in the week, but inside he felt very proud, too.
When Kesshoo and Koko's father came up with the big seal, Koolee and the other women dragged it to the village, where it was skinned and cut up. Every one had a piece of raw blubber to eat at once, and the very first piece went to Menie.
While they were eating it, Koko came back. He had gone so far up the shore hunting little auks that he hadn't seen a thing that had happened. And he hadn't killed any little auks either.
Koko felt that things were very unequally divided in this world. He wanted to kill a seal and get lost on a raft and be a hero too.
But Koolee gave him a large piece of blubber, and that made him feel much more cheerful again. He just said to Monnie, "If I had been with Menie, this never would have happened! I should not have let him get so near the edge of the ice! But then, you know, I am six, and he is only five, so, of course, he didn't know any better."
Everybody in the village had seal meat that night, and the Angakok had the head, which they all thought was the best part. He said he didn't feel very well, and his Tornak had told him nothing would cure him so quickly as a seal's head. So Koolee gave it to him.
The skin of the little white seal Koolee saved and dressed very carefully. She chewed it, all over, on the wrong side, and sucked out all the blubber, and made it soft and fine as velvet; and when that was done, she made out of it two beautiful pairs of white mittens for the twins.
During the long, dark hours of the winter Kesshoo found many pleasant things to do at home. He was always busy. He carved a doll for Monnie out of the ivory tusk of a walrus.
Monnie named the doll Annadore, and she loved it dearly. Koolee dressed Annadore in fur, with tiny kamiks of sealskin, and Monnie carried her doll in her hood, just the way Koko's mother carried her baby.
For Menie, his father made dog harnesses out of walrus hide. He made them just the right size for Nip and Tup.
Menie harnessed the little dogs to his sled. Then he and Monnie would play sledge journeys. Annadore would sit on the sled all wrapped in furs, while Menie drove the dogs, and Monnie followed after.
Nip and Tup did not like this play very well, and they didn't always go where they were told to. Once they dashed right over the igloo and spilled Annadore off.
Annadore rolled down one side of the igloo, while Nip and Tup galloped down the other. Annadore was buried in the snow and had to be dug out, so it was quite a serious accident, you see, but Nip and Tup did not seem to feel at all responsible about it.
Kesshoo made knives and queer spoons out of bone or ivory for Koolee, and for himself he made new barbs for his bladder-dart, new bone hooks for fishlines, and all sorts of things for hunting.
He made salmon spears, and bird darts, and fishlines, and he ornamented his weapons with little pictures or patterns. He carved two frogs on the handle of his snow knife, and scratched the picture of a walrus on the blade.
Sometimes Koolee carved things, too, but most of the time she was busy making coats or kamiks, or chewing skins to make them soft and fine for use in the igloo; or to cover the kyaks, or to make their summer tent.
Once during the winter the whole family went thirty miles up the coast by moonlight to visit Koolee's brother in another village. They went with the dog sledge, and it took them two days.
They had meat and blubber with them and plenty of warm skins, and when they got tired, Kesshoo made a snow house for them to rest in. The twins thought this was the best fun of all.
When spring came on, there were other things to do. As the days grew longer, the ice in the bay cracked and broke into small pieces and floated away.
The water turned deep blue, and danced in the sunlight, and ice floated about in it. Often there were walrus on these ice-pans.
The twins sometimes saw their huge black bodies on the white ice, and heard their hoarse barks. Then all the men in the village would rush for their kyaks and set out after the walrus.
The men were brave and enjoyed the dangerous sport, but the women used to watch anxiously until they saw the kyaks coming home towing the walrus behind them.
Then they would rush down to the shore, help pull the kyaks up on the beach, where they cut the walrus in pieces and divided it among the families of the hunters.
When the snow had melted on the Big Rock, hundreds of sea-birds made their nests there and filled the air with their cries.
Sometimes Kesshoo went egg hunting on the cliff, and sometimes he set traps there for foxes, and he helped Menie and Koko make a little trap to catch hares. There was plenty to do in every season of the year.
At last the nights shortened to nothing at all. The long day had begun. The stone but, which they had found so comfortable in winter, seemed dark and damp now.
Menie and Monnie remembered the summer days when they did not have to dive down through a hole to get into their house, so Menie said to Monnie one day, "Let's go and ask father if it isn't time to put up the tents."
They ran out to find him. He was down on the beach talking with Koko's father and the other men of the village.
On the beach were two very long boats. The men were looking them over carefully to see if they were water tight.
Koko was with the men. When he saw the twins coming, he tore up the slope to meet them, waving his arms and shouting, "They're getting out the woman-boats! They're getting out the woman-boats!"
This was glorious news to the twins. They ran down to the beach with Koko as fast as their legs could carry them.
They got there just in time to hear Koko's father say to Kesshoo, "I think it's safe to start. The ice is pretty well out of the bay, and the reindeer will be coming down to the fiords after fresh moss."
All the men listened to hear what Kesshoo would say, and the twins listened, too, with all their ears.
"If it's clear, I think we could start after one more sleep," said Kesshoo.
The twins didn't wait to hear any more. They flew for home, and dashed down the tunnel and up into the room.
Koolee was gathering all the knives and spoons and fishing-things and sewing things, and dumping them into a large musk-ox hide which was spread on the floor.
The musk-ox hide covered the entrance hole. The first thing Koolee knew something thumped the musk-ox skin on the under side, and the knives and thimbles and needle cases and other things flew in all directions. Up through the hole popped the faces of Menie and Monnie!
"Oh, Mother," they shouted. "We're going off on the woman-boats! After only one more sleep, if it's pleasant! Father said so!"
Koolee laughed. "I know it!" she said. "I was just packing. You can help me. There's a lot to do to get ready."
The twins were delighted to help. They got together all their own treasures—the sled, and the fishing rods, the dog harnesses, and Annadore, and bound them up with walrus thongs. All but Annadore. Annadore rode in Monnie's hood as usual.
Koolee gathered all her things together again and wrapped them in the musk-ox hide. She took down the long narwhal tusks that the dog harnesses were hung on.
These were the tent poles. She and the twins carried all these things to the beach. The men stayed on the beach and packed the things away in the boats. The other women brought down their bundles from their igloos. There was room for everything in the two big boats.
Only the skins were left on the sleeping bench in the hut. When everything else was ready, Koolee and the twins went up on top of the igloo.
They pulled the moss and dirt out of the chinks between the stones that made the roof, and then Koolee pulled up the stones themselves and let them fall over to one side. This left the roof open to the sky.
"What makes you do that?" Menie asked.
"So the sun and rain can clean house for us," said Koolee.
Everybody else in the village got ready in the same way.
At last Kesshoo came up from the beach and said to Koolee, "Let us have some meat and a sleep and then we will start. Everything is ready. The boats are packed and it looks as if the weather would be clear."
Koolee brought out some walrus meat and blubber for supper, though it might just as well be called breakfast, for there was no night coming, and the twins ate theirs sitting on the roof of the igloo with their feet hanging down inside.
Once Menie's feet kicked his father's head. It was an accident, but Kesshoo reached up and took hold of Menie's foot and pulled him down on to the sleeping bench and rolled him over among the skins.
"Crawl in there and go to sleep," he said.
Monnie let herself down through the roof by her hands and crept in beside Menie. Then Kesshoo and Koolee wrapped themselves in the warm skins and lay down, too.
It took Menie and Monnie some time to go to sleep, for they could look straight up through the roof at the sky, and the sky was bright and blue with little white clouds sailing over it. Besides, they were thinking about the wonderful things that would happen when they should wake up.
When the twins awoke, the sun was shining as brightly as ever, and Nip and Tup were barking at them through the hole in the roof.
Kesshoo and Koolee were gone!
Menie and Monnie were frightened. They were afraid they were left behind. They sat up in bed and howled!
In a moment Koolee's face looked down at them through the roof.
"What's the matter?" she said.
"We thought we were left," wailed Monnie!
"As if I could leave you behind!" cried Koolee.
She laughed at them. "Hand up the skins to me," she said. She reached her arm down the hole and pulled out all the skins from the bed as fast as the twins gave them to her.
Then she put her head down into the opening and looked all around. "We haven't left a thing," she said; "come along."
The twins couldn't climb out through the roof, though they wanted to, so they went out by the tunnel, and helped their mother carry the skins to the beach.
All the people in the village and all the dogs were there before them. The great woman-boats were packed, the kyaks of the men waited beside them in a row on the beach, with their noses in the water.
The dogs barked and raced up and down the beach, the babies crowed, and the children shouted for joy. Even the grown people were gay. They talked in loud tones and laughed and made jokes.
At last Kesshoo shouted, "All ready! In you go!" He told each person where to sit.
He put the Angakok in one boat to steer. He put Koko's father in the other.
In Koko's father's boat he placed Koko and his mother and the baby, Koolee and the twins, the pups, all three dogs, and four of the women who lived in the other igloos. So you see it was quite a large boat.
In the Angakok's boat he placed his two wives, and all the rest of the women and children and dogs. The women took up the paddles. One end of the boat was partly in the water when they got in. The men gently pushed it farther out until it floated.
Then the men got into their kyaks at the water's edge, fastened their skin coats over the rims, and paddled out into deep water.
At last, when all the boats, big and little, were afloat, Kesshoo called out, "We are going north. Follow me."
The women obeyed the signal of Koko's father and the Angakok. The paddles dipped together into the water. The great boats moved! They were off!
The children all sat together in the bottom of the boat, but the twins and Koko were big enough to see over the sides. While the babies played with the dogs, they were busy watching the things that passed on the shores. Soon they passed the Big Rock with little auks and puffins flying about it. They could see the red feet of the puffins, and a blue fox sitting on the top of the rock, waiting for a chance to catch a bird.
Then the Big Rock hid the village from sight.
Beyond the Big Rock the country was all new to the twins and Koko. They looked into narrow bays and inlets as the boat moved along, and saw green moss carpeting the sunny slopes in sheltered places.
They could even see bright flowers growing in the warm spots which faced the sun. The sky was blue overhead. The water was blue below.
Beyond the green slopes they could see the bare hillsides crowned with the white ice cap which never melts, and streams of water dashing down the hillsides and pouring themselves into the waters of the bay.
When they had gone a good many miles up the coast, Kesshoo waved his hand and pointed to a strange sight on the shore.
There was a great river of ice! They could see where it came out of a hollow place between two hills. It looked just like a river, only it was frozen solid, and the end of it, where it came into the sea, was broken off like a great wall of ice, and there were cakes of ice floating about in the water.
Suddenly there was a cracking sound. Menie had heard that sound before. It was the same sound that he had heard when he went seal-hole hunting and got carried away on the ice raft. Menie didn't like the sound anymore. It scared him!
Right after the cracking noise Kesshoo's voice shouted, "Row farther out! Follow me!"
He turned his kyak straight out to sea. All the other boats followed.
They had gone only about half a mile when suddenly there was a loud crick-crick-CRACK as if a piece of the world had broken off, and then there was a splash that could be heard for miles, if there had been any one to hear it.
The end of the glacier, or ice river, had broken off and fallen down into the water! It had made an iceberg!
The splash was so great that in a moment the waves it made reached the boats. The boats rocked up and down on the water and bounced about like corks.
The twins and Koko thought this was great fun, but the Angakok didn't like it a bit. One wave splashed over him, and some of the water went down his neck.
All the grown people knew that if they hadn't rowed quickly away from shore when Kesshoo called they might have been upset and drowned.
When the waves made by the iceberg had calmed down again, Kesshoo paddled round among the boats.
He said, "I think we'd better land about a mile above here. There's a stream there, and perhaps we can get some salmon for our dinner."
He led the way in his kyak, and all the other boats followed. They kept out of the path of the iceberg, which had already floated some distance from the shore, and it was not long before they came to a little inlet.
Kesshoo paddled into it and up to the very end of it, where a beautiful stream of clear water came dashing down over the rocks into the sea.
The hills sloped suddenly down to the shore. The sun shone brightly on the green slopes, and the high cliffs behind shut off the cold north winds. It was a little piece of summer set right down in the valley.
"Oh, how beautiful!" everybody cried.
The boats were soon drawn up on the beach, the women and children tumbled out, and then began preparations for dinner.
The women got out their cooking pots, and Koolee set to work to make a fireplace out of three stones.
They had blubber and moss with them, but how could they get a fire? They had no matches. They had never even heard of a match.
The Angakok sat down on the beach. He had some little pieces of dry driftwood and some dried moss.
He held one end of a piece of driftwood in a sort of handle which he pressed against his lips. The other end was in a hollow spot in another piece of wood.
The Angakok rolled one driftwood stick round and round in the hollow spot of the other. He did this by means of a bow which he pulled from one side to the other. This made the stick whirl first one way, then back again. Soon a little smoke came curling up round the stick.
Koolee dropped some dried moss on the smoking spot. Suddenly there was a little blaze!
She fed the little flame with more moss, and then lighted the moss on the stones of the fireplace. She put a soapstone kettle filled with water over the fire, and soon the kettle was boiling.
While all this was going on down on the beach, the men took their salmon spears and went up the river, and Koko and the twins went with them.
The wives of the Angakok went to find moss to feed the fire. They brought back great armfuls of it, and put it beside the fireplace.
Koolee was the cook. She stayed on the beach and looked after the babies and the dogs, and the fire. Everything was ready for dinner, except the food!
Meanwhile the men had found a good place where there were big stones in the river. They stood on these stones with their spears in their hands. There were hundreds of salmon in the little stream. The salmon were going up to the little lake from which the river flowed.
When the fish leaped in the water, the men struck at them with their fish spears. There were so many fish, and the men were so skillful that they soon had plenty for dinner.
They strung them all on a walrus line and went back to the beach. Koolee popped as many as she could into her pot to cook, but the men were so hungry they ate theirs raw, and the twins and Koko had as many fishes' eyes to eat as they wanted, for once in their lives.
When everybody had eaten as much as he could possibly hold, the babies were rolled up in furs in the sand and went to sleep. The Angakok lay down on the sand in the sunshine with his hands over his stomach and was soon asleep, too.
The men sat in a little group near by, and Menie and Koko lay on their stomachs beside Kesshoo.
The women had gone a little farther up the beach. The air was still, except for the rippling sound of the water, the distant chatter of the women, the snores of the Angakok, and the buzzing of mosquitoes!
For quite a long time everybody rested. Menie and Koko didn't go to sleep. They were having too much fun. They played with shells and pebbles and watched the mosquitoes buzzing over the Angakok's face. There were a great many mosquitoes, and they seemed to like the Angakok. At last one settled on his nose, and bit and bit. Menie and Koko wanted to slap it, but, of course, they didn't dare. They just had to let it bite!
All of a sudden the Angakok woke up and slapped it himself. He slapped it harder than he intended to. He looked very much surprised and quite offended about it. He sat up and looked round for his wives, as if he thought perhaps they had something to do with it. But they were at the other end of the beach. The Angakok yawned and rubbed his nose, which was a good deal swollen.
Just then Kesshoo spoke, "I think we shall look a long time before we find a better spot than this to camp," he said. "Here are plenty of salmon. We can catch all we need to dry for winter use, right here. There must be deer farther up the fiord. What do you say to setting up the tents right here?"
When Kesshoo said anything, the others were pretty sure to agree, because Kesshoo was such a brave and skillful man that they trusted his judgment.
All the men said, "Yes, let us stay."
Then the Angakok said, "Yes, my children, let us stay! While you thought I was asleep here on the sand I was really in a trance. I thought it best to ask my Tornak about this spot, and whether we should be threatened here by any hidden danger. My Tornak says to stay!"
This settled the matter.
"Tell the women," said Kesshoo. Koko's father went over to the place where the women and children were.
"Get out the tent poles," he called to them. "Here's where we stay."
The women jumped up and ran to the woman-boats. They got out the long narwhal tusks, and the skins, and set them down on the beach.
"Come with me," Koolee called to the twins. She gave them each a long tent pole to carry. She herself carried the longest pole of all, and a pile of skins.
Koolee led the way up the green slope to a level spot overlooking the stream and the bay. It was beside some high rocks, and there were smaller stones all about.
There was a flat stone that she used for the sleeping bench. When the poles were set up and securely fastened, she got the tent skins and covered the poles.
She put on one layer of skin with the hair inside and over that another covering of skin with the fur side out. She sewed the skins together over the entrance with leather thongs and left a flap for a door.
Then she placed stones around the edge of the tent covering to keep the wind from blowing it away. She piled the bed skins on the rock, and their summer house was ready.
The twins brought the musk-ox hides, with all their treasures in them, and the cooking pots and knives and household things from the beach, while Koolee made the fireplace in the tent.
She made the fireplace by driving four sticks into the ground and lashing them together to make a framework.
She hung the cooking kettle by straps from the four corners. Under the kettle on a flat stone she placed the lamp. Then the stove was ready.
"We shall cook out of doors most of the time," she said to the twins, "but in rainy weather we shall need the lamp."
It was only a little while before there was a whole new village ready to live in, with plenty of fish and good fresh water right at hand.
Menie and Monnie were happy in their new home. They climbed about on the rock and found a beautiful cave to play in. They gathered flowers and shells and colored stones and brought them to their mother.
Then later they went for more fish with the men, and Kesshoo let them stand on the stones and try to spear the fish just the way the men did.
Menie caught one, and Koko caught one, but Monnie had no luck at all. "Anyway, I caught a codfish once," Monnie said, to comfort herself.
In two hours everything was as settled about the camp as if they had lived there a week, and every one was hungry again. Hungriness and sleepiness came just as regularly as if they had had nights and clocks both, to measure time by.
When the food was ready, Kesshoo called "Ujo, ujo," which meant "boiled meat," and everybody came running to the beach.
The men sat in one circle, the women and children in another. Pots of boiled fish were set in the middle of the circles, and they all dipped in with their fingers and took what they wanted.
When everybody had eaten, the children played on the beach. They skipped stones and danced and played ball, and their mothers played with them.
The men had their fun, too. They sat in their circle, told stories, and played games which weren't children's games, and the Angakok sang a song, beating time on a little drum. All the men sang the chorus.
By and by, Koolee saw Monnie's head nodding. So she said to the twins, "Come, children, let's go up to the tent."
She took their hands and led them up the slope.
"We're not sleepy," the twins declared.
"I am," said Koolee, "and I want you with me."
They went into the tent, which was not so light as it was out of doors in the bright sunlight. Then they undressed, crawled in among the deerskins, and were soon sound asleep, all three of them. After a while Kesshoo came up from the beach and went to sleep too.
The summer days flew by, only one really shouldn't say days at all, but summer day. For three whole bright months it was just one daylight picnic all the time!
The people ate when they were hungry and slept when they were sleepy. The men caught hundreds of salmon, and the women split them open and dried them on the rocks for winter use. The children played all day long.
The men hunted deer and musk-ox and bears up in the hills and brought them back to camp. They hunted game both by land and by sea. There was so much to eat that everybody grew fatter, and as for the Angakok, he got so very fat that Koko said to Menie, "I don't believe we can ever get the Angakok home in the woman-boat! He's so heavy he'll sink it! I think it would be a good plan to tie a string to him and tow him back like a walrus!"
"Yes," said Menie. "Maybe he would shrink some if we soaked him well. Don't you know how water shrinks the walrus hide cords that we tie around things when we want them to hold tight together?"
It was lucky for Menie and Koko that nobody heard them say that about the Angakok. It would have been thought very disrespectful.
When the game grew scarce, or they got tired of camping in one spot everything was piled into their boats again, and away they went up the coast until they found another place they liked better. Then they would set up their tents again.
Sometimes they came to other camps and had a good time meeting new people and making new friends.
At last, late in August, the sun slipped down below the edge of the World again. It stayed just long enough to fill the sky with wonderful red and gold sunset clouds, then it came up again. The next night there was a little time between the sunset sky and the lovely colors of the sunrise.
The next night was longer still. Each day grew colder and colder. Still the people lingered in their tents. They did not like to think the pleasant summer was over, and the long night near.
But at last Kesshoo said, "I think it is time to go back to winter quarters. The nights are fast growing longer. The snow may be upon us any day now. I don't know of a better place to settle than the village where we spent last winter. The igloos are all built there ready to use again. What do you say? Shall we go back there?"
"Yes, let us go back," they all said.
The very next day they started. The boats were heavily loaded with dried fish, there were great piles of new skins heaped in the woman-boats, and every kyak towed a seal.
For days they traveled along the coast, stopping only for rest and food. The twins and Koko sat in the bottom of the boat with the dogs, and listened to the regular dip of the paddles, to the cries of the sea-birds as they flew away toward the south, and to the chatter of the women. These were almost the only sounds they heard, for the silence of the Great White World was all about them. They talked together in low voices and planned all the things they would do when the long night was really upon them once more.
When at last they came in sight of the Big Rock, they felt as if they had reached home after a very long journey.
Koko stood up in the boat and pointed to it. "See," he cried, "there's the Big Rock where we found the bear!"
"Yes," Monnie said, "and where we slid downhill."
"And I see where I got caught on the ice raft," Menie shouted.
"Sit down," said Koko's mother. "You'll tip the boat and spill us all into the water."
Koko sat down; the boat glided along through the water, nearer and nearer, until at last they came round the Big Rock, and there, just as if they had not been away at all, lay the whole village of five igloos, looking as if it had gone to sleep in the sunshine.
The big boats waited until the men had all paddled to the shore and beached their kyaks, then they were drawn carefully up on to the sand, and every one got out. The beach at once became a very busy place. The men pulled the walruses and seals out of the water and took care of the boats, while the women set up the tents, cut the meat into big pieces for storage, and carried all their belongings to the tents.
Although the village looked just the same, other things looked quite different. Nip and Tup were big dogs by this time. They ran away up the beach with Tooky and the other dogs the moment they were out of the boats. They did not stay with the twins all the time now, as they used to do. The twins were much bigger, too. Koolee looked at them as they helped her carry the tent-skins up from the beach, and said to them, "My goodness, I must make my needles fly! Winter is upon us and your clothes are getting too small for you! You must have new things right away." The twins thought this was a very good idea. They liked new clothes as well as any one in the world.
Koolee set up the tent beside their old igloo, and there they lived while the men of the village went out every day in their kyaks for seal and walrus, or back into the hills after other game to store away for food during the long winter. The women scraped and cured the skins and cut up the meat and packed it away as fast as the men could kill the game and bring it home.
Each day it grew colder, and each night was longer than the last, until one short September day there came a great snow storm! It snowed all day long, and that night the wind blew so hard that Koolee and the twins nearly froze even among the fur covers of their bed, and when morning came they found themselves nearly buried under a great drift.
That very day Koolee put the stones over the roof of the igloo once more, and the twins helped her fill in the chinks with moss and earth, and cover it with a heavy layer of snow, patted down with the snow shovel, until everything was snug and tight again.
Then they moved in. By the next day all the igloos in the village were in use, and when night came their windows shone with the light of the lamps, just as they had so many months before.
Nip and Tup slept outside with Tooky now, in a snow house which Kesshoo had built for them. Menie and Monnie missed them, but Koolee said, "You are getting so big now you must begin to do something besides play with puppies. Monnie must learn to sew, and Menie must help Father with feeding the dogs and looking after their harnesses, and driving the sledge."
"Maybe Father will teach you both to carve fine things out of ivory this winter! Monnie will soon need her own thimble and needles. They must be made. And she can help me clean the skins and suck out the blubber, and prepare them for being made into clothes!"
"Dear me! what a lot there is to do to keep clothes on our backs and food in our mouths! The Giants are always waiting before the igloo and we must work very hard to keep them outside!"
She did not mean real giants. She meant that Hunger and Want are always waiting to seize the Eskimo who does not work all the time to supply food for himself and his family. She meant that Menie must learn to be a brave strong hunter, afraid of nothing on sea or land, and that Monnie must learn to do a woman's work well, or else the time would come when they would be without food or shelter or clothing, and the fierce cold would soon make an end of them.
It was lucky they got into the warm igloo just when they did, for the winter had come to stay. The bay froze over far out from shore, and the white snow covered the igloos so completely that if it had not been for the windows, and for people moving about out of doors, no one could have told that there was any village there.
The Last Day of all was so short that Menie and Monnie and Koko saw the whole of it from the top of the Big Rock! They had gone up there in the gray twilight that comes before the sunrise to build a snow house to play in. They had been there only a little while when the sky grew all rosy just over the Edge of the World. The color grew stronger and stronger until the little stars were all drowned in it and then up came the great round red face of the sun itself! The children watched it as it peered over the horizon, threw long blue shadows behind them across the snow, and then sank slowly, slowly down again, leaving only the flaming colors in the sky to mark the place where it had been. They waved their hands as it slipped out of sight. "Good bye, old Sun," they shouted, "and good bye, Shadow, too! We shall be glad to see you both when you come back again."
Then, because the wind blew very cold and they could see a snow cloud coming toward them from the Great White World where the Giants lived, the children ran together down the snowy slope toward the bright windows of their homes.