Chapter Ten.A Wild Chase and a Bad Failure.It does not necessarily require the influences of civilised life to make an honourable, upright man, any more than it needs the influences of savage life to make a thorough scoundrel. Of course the tendency of civilisation is to elevate, of savagery to debase, nevertheless it is certain that as we occasionally see blackguards in the highest ranks, so we sometimes find men and women with exalted conceptions of right and wrong in the lowest circles of life.The truth would seem to be that the Spirit of God is not confined to ranks or conditions of men—a fact that appears to be confirmed by the Scripture statement that “in every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is acceptable to Him.”Cheenbuk’s mind must assuredly have been influenced by a good spirit when, after descending the little river at the utmost speed possible—so as to render recapture for a time at least improbable—he directed his companion to run the canoe on the bank in an eddy formed by a flat rock, and then, against his own most earnest desires, advised Adolay to return to her people.“While we were paddling down-stream,” he said, “I have been thinking much, and I cannot believe that your people would be so hard as to kill you for only helping a poor Eskimo to escape. Now, I have changed my mind. I have often found that it is better to think more than once before acting, if you have time to do so. What I think now is, that we should hide the canoe here, and return to your village on foot together. When we get there—or when we meet them chasing us—you will go on, and I will hide to see how they receive you, and if they receive you kindly—as I feel sure they will do—I will return here to this spot, take the canoe, and go to my home alone. I cannot bear to take you from your father and mother. I think the Great Spirit, who is the father of all, would be angry with me. But I will not force you to return if you are afraid.”“I am afraid,” returned Adolay, quickly. “You do not know how angry the men will be: and you don’t know how sharp their eyes are. If you were to return with me they would see you long before you could see them, and would give you no chance to hide.”“Then there is nothing to be done but to go on,” said Cheenbuk, with a sigh which he loyally strove to vent as a sign of regret, but which insisted on issuing forth as a distinct sound of satisfaction!“You have promised to take me safe to your mother’s igloe, and to bring me back to my own home,” said Adolay, with a look of confidence. “I will go on and trust you.”Without another word the Eskimo pushed off the head of the canoe, which was caught by the current and swept down-stream. Ere long they reached the Greygoose River, and, paddling into the centre of the current, were soon careering towards the sea at a pace which they thought rendered their being overtaken almost impossible. To make quite sure, however, they continued the voyage far into the night, and did not land for a very brief rest until the grey dawn had begun to appear over the eastern tree-tops.Being both somewhat fatigued by that time they scarcely uttered a word as they encamped, but went about the work as if half asleep. Cheenbuk lifted the canoe out of the water and laid it on the bank, bottom up, in which position it formed a rough and ready tent for his companion, who, meanwhile, carried up the provisions. Seated on the grass beside it they ate a little dried venison, which required no cooking—uttering only a monosyllable now and then with half-closed eyes, and sometimes with an imbecile smile, which terminated occasionally in an irresistible nod. The feebleness of the light, too, as well as the quietness of the hour, contributed not a little to this state of semi-consciousness.The frugal supper having been washed down with a draught of water, from Nature’s own cup—the joined hands—Adolay lay down under the canoe. Cheenbuk retired to a neighbouring spruce-fir and stretched himself under its branches. Need we add that sleep closed their eyelids instantly?But the Eskimo was much too experienced a hunter and warrior to allow the drowsy god to enchain him long. Like a dead log he lay for little more than two hours, then he awoke with a start and stretched himself.“Hoi!” he exclaimed sharply, looking towards the canoe, which was distant from his lair about five or six yards.The exclamation had scarcely passed his lips when Adolay sprang up, and next moment went blinking, yawning, and stumbling down the bank with the provisions under one arm, the paddles and weapons under the other. Cheenbuk lifted the canoe and followed her. In a few minutes they were once more out in the middle of the strong current, paddling with might and main.Now, it was well that they had used such diligence in their flight, for the pursuers were closer behind them than they had supposed.When the unfortunate Alizay was felled by the Eskimo, as we have described, he lay for a considerable time in a state of insensibility, but he was by no means killed—not even seriously damaged—for Cheenbuk’s intense dislike to take life had not only induced him to drop the knife with which the Indian girl had supplied him to cut his cords, but inclined him to use his ponderous fist with moderation, so that Alizay, on recovering, found himself none the worse, except for a severe headache and an unnaturally large bridge to his nose.Gathering himself up, and gradually swelling with rage as he reflected on the treatment to which he had been subjected, he ran at full speed to alarm the camp and begin a search. But where were they to search?—that was the question. There were four points to the compass—though they knew nothing about the compass—and the fugitive might have gone off in the direction of any of these, or between them, and it was too dark a night to permit of his trail being followed by sight, for, although the moon might aid them in the open, it would be quite useless in the darkness of the woods.A hurried council was held, and a good deal of distracting advice given while the young braves were arming themselves. To add to their perplexities, a lad rushed suddenly into the council-tent with glaring eyes, saying that the girl Idazoo had disappeared from the village. This news greatly increased the fury of Alizay, but he had scarcely realised the truth when another lad, with, if possible, still more glaring eyes and a gaping mouth, rushed in to tell that the girl Adolay was also missing. This blew up the agitation to a frenzy of excitement—not usual among the Red men of the north—because the necessity for prompt action was great, while the impossibility of doing anything definite was greater.It was just at this point, when the clamour was at its height, that a sound was heard which instantly produced dead silence, while every man and boy became as if petrified, with eyes enlarged and ears cocked to listen.Again the sound was heard—a distant yell undoubtedly, coming from the direction of the cliff.All the self-possession and promptitude of the Indians returned in a moment. In a second the braves glided out of the council-tent and disappeared, each making a straight line for the sound, while the women and children left behind listened with profound attention and expectation.There was no lack of guiding sounds now, for the moment Idazoo managed to clear her mouth of the gag she began and continued a series of shrieks and yells which were intensified in vigour by the fact that she gradually became hysterical as well as wrathful.The first to reach the spot was Alizay. On beholding him the girl stopped, and, after two or three exasperated echoes had finished their remarks, a profound silence reigned.Lovers among the Dogribs are not yet very gallant. Civilisation may do something for them, as to this, in time.“You can make a noise!” said the youth, stepping up to her.“I have reason to do so,” replied the maiden, somewhat abashed.“Did Adolay go with him?” asked Alizay as several of the other braves ran up.“Yes.”“Willingly?”“Yes—she helped to tie me and showed him the way.”“Where did they go?”“In the direction of the lake.”Instantly the whole band turned and ran off in the direction mentioned—Alizay being last, as he paused just long enough to cut the bonds of Idazoo, but left her to disentangle herself as she best could.On reaching the shores of the lake the footsteps of the fugitives showed clear in the moonlight, and the marks of launching the canoe were visible, so that there was no further doubt as to what should be done. The Indians knew well that there was only one outlet from the lake. Their canoes were close by, and their guns and tomahawks in their hands. Nothing therefore required to be done but to embark and give chase. For this purpose two canoes were deemed sufficient, with three men in each.Magadar took charge of the leading canoe. Alizay steered the other, and the rest of the braves returned to the village to gloat over the news that Idazoo had to tell, to feast on the produce of the previous day’s hunt, and to clear—or obfuscate—their intellects, more or less, with their tobacco-pipes.As the six pursuers were very wrathful, and pretty strong, they caused their canoes to skim over the lake like swallows, and reached the head of the little river not very long after the fugitives had left it. A stern chase, however, is proverbially a long one, and as they overhauled the chase only inch by inch, there seemed little chance of overtaking it that night. The leaders, however, being men of great endurance, resolved to carry on without rest as long as possible. This they did until about dawn—the same hour at which the fugitives had succumbed—and both parties put ashore at last for a rest, neither being aware of the fact that their separate camping-grounds were not more than three miles apart!Well was it then for Adolay that her stout protector was a light sleeper, as well as a man of iron frame, and that he had aroused her fully an hour and a half sooner than the time at which the Indians left their camp to resume the chase. It was well, also, that Cheenbuk required but a short rest to recruit his strength and enable him to resume the paddle with his full vigour. The joy, also, consequent upon the discovery that he loved the Indian girl, and that she had made up her mind, without any persuasion on his part, to run away with him, lent additional power to his strong back. Perhaps, also, a sympathetic feeling in the breast of the maiden added to the strength of her well-formed and by no means feeble arm, so that many miles were soon added to the three which intervened between the chasers and the chased. To the horror of Adolay she found when she and Cheenbuk reached the mouth of the river, that the sea was extensively blocked by masses of ice, which extended out as far as the eye could reach.Although thus encumbered, however, the sea was by no means choked up with it, and to the gaze of the young Eskimo the ice presented no insurmountable obstacle, for his experienced eye could trace leads and lanes of open water as far as the first group of distant islets, which lay like scarce perceptible specks on the horizon.But to the inexperienced eye of the girl the scene was one of hopeless confusion, and it filled her with sudden alarm and despair, though she possessed more than the usual share of the Dogrib women’s courage. Observing her alarm, Cheenbuk gave her a look of encouragement, but avoided telling her not to be afraid, for his admiration of her was too profound to admit of his thinking that she could really be frightened, whatever her looks might indicate.“The ice is our friend to-day,” he said, with a cheery smile, as they stood together on the seashore beside their canoe, surveying the magnificent scene of snowy field, fantastic hummock, massive berg, and glittering pinnacle that lay spread out before them.Adolay felt, but did not express surprise, for she was filled with a most commendable trust in the truth and wisdom as well as the courage of the man to whose care she had committed herself.“If you say the ice is our friend, it must be so,” she remarked quietly, “but to the Indian girl it seems as if the ice was our foe, for she can see no escape, and my people will be sure to follow us.”“Let them follow,” returned Cheenbuk, with a quiet laugh, as he re-arranged the lading of the canoe before continuing the voyage. “They won’t follow beyond this place!”Lifting out the big stone, which had formed a counterpoise to his weight, he flung it on the beach.“We will change places now, Adolay,” he said, “you have guided our canoe when on the inland waters; it is now my turn to steer, for I understand the sea of ice. Get in, we will start.”When Magadar and his comrades arrived at the mouth of the Greygoose River and beheld the aspect of the sea, a cry of mingled surprise and disappointment escaped them, but when they had landed and discovered the canoe of the fugitives far away like a speck among the ice-floes, the cry was transmuted into a howl of rage.“Quick! embark! Let us after them!” shouted Magadar.“Death to them both!” yelled Alizay.For a few minutes the Indians followed the lanes of open water, till their turnings began to appear somewhat complicated; then the warlike spirit became a little subdued. Presently one of the Indians discovered—or thought he discovered—that the lead of water was narrowing, and that the ice was closing in.Promptly both canoes were put about, and the shore was regained with amazing speed.After that the Dogribs paddled quietly up the Greygoose River, and meekly returned to their woodland home.
It does not necessarily require the influences of civilised life to make an honourable, upright man, any more than it needs the influences of savage life to make a thorough scoundrel. Of course the tendency of civilisation is to elevate, of savagery to debase, nevertheless it is certain that as we occasionally see blackguards in the highest ranks, so we sometimes find men and women with exalted conceptions of right and wrong in the lowest circles of life.
The truth would seem to be that the Spirit of God is not confined to ranks or conditions of men—a fact that appears to be confirmed by the Scripture statement that “in every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is acceptable to Him.”
Cheenbuk’s mind must assuredly have been influenced by a good spirit when, after descending the little river at the utmost speed possible—so as to render recapture for a time at least improbable—he directed his companion to run the canoe on the bank in an eddy formed by a flat rock, and then, against his own most earnest desires, advised Adolay to return to her people.
“While we were paddling down-stream,” he said, “I have been thinking much, and I cannot believe that your people would be so hard as to kill you for only helping a poor Eskimo to escape. Now, I have changed my mind. I have often found that it is better to think more than once before acting, if you have time to do so. What I think now is, that we should hide the canoe here, and return to your village on foot together. When we get there—or when we meet them chasing us—you will go on, and I will hide to see how they receive you, and if they receive you kindly—as I feel sure they will do—I will return here to this spot, take the canoe, and go to my home alone. I cannot bear to take you from your father and mother. I think the Great Spirit, who is the father of all, would be angry with me. But I will not force you to return if you are afraid.”
“I am afraid,” returned Adolay, quickly. “You do not know how angry the men will be: and you don’t know how sharp their eyes are. If you were to return with me they would see you long before you could see them, and would give you no chance to hide.”
“Then there is nothing to be done but to go on,” said Cheenbuk, with a sigh which he loyally strove to vent as a sign of regret, but which insisted on issuing forth as a distinct sound of satisfaction!
“You have promised to take me safe to your mother’s igloe, and to bring me back to my own home,” said Adolay, with a look of confidence. “I will go on and trust you.”
Without another word the Eskimo pushed off the head of the canoe, which was caught by the current and swept down-stream. Ere long they reached the Greygoose River, and, paddling into the centre of the current, were soon careering towards the sea at a pace which they thought rendered their being overtaken almost impossible. To make quite sure, however, they continued the voyage far into the night, and did not land for a very brief rest until the grey dawn had begun to appear over the eastern tree-tops.
Being both somewhat fatigued by that time they scarcely uttered a word as they encamped, but went about the work as if half asleep. Cheenbuk lifted the canoe out of the water and laid it on the bank, bottom up, in which position it formed a rough and ready tent for his companion, who, meanwhile, carried up the provisions. Seated on the grass beside it they ate a little dried venison, which required no cooking—uttering only a monosyllable now and then with half-closed eyes, and sometimes with an imbecile smile, which terminated occasionally in an irresistible nod. The feebleness of the light, too, as well as the quietness of the hour, contributed not a little to this state of semi-consciousness.
The frugal supper having been washed down with a draught of water, from Nature’s own cup—the joined hands—Adolay lay down under the canoe. Cheenbuk retired to a neighbouring spruce-fir and stretched himself under its branches. Need we add that sleep closed their eyelids instantly?
But the Eskimo was much too experienced a hunter and warrior to allow the drowsy god to enchain him long. Like a dead log he lay for little more than two hours, then he awoke with a start and stretched himself.
“Hoi!” he exclaimed sharply, looking towards the canoe, which was distant from his lair about five or six yards.
The exclamation had scarcely passed his lips when Adolay sprang up, and next moment went blinking, yawning, and stumbling down the bank with the provisions under one arm, the paddles and weapons under the other. Cheenbuk lifted the canoe and followed her. In a few minutes they were once more out in the middle of the strong current, paddling with might and main.
Now, it was well that they had used such diligence in their flight, for the pursuers were closer behind them than they had supposed.
When the unfortunate Alizay was felled by the Eskimo, as we have described, he lay for a considerable time in a state of insensibility, but he was by no means killed—not even seriously damaged—for Cheenbuk’s intense dislike to take life had not only induced him to drop the knife with which the Indian girl had supplied him to cut his cords, but inclined him to use his ponderous fist with moderation, so that Alizay, on recovering, found himself none the worse, except for a severe headache and an unnaturally large bridge to his nose.
Gathering himself up, and gradually swelling with rage as he reflected on the treatment to which he had been subjected, he ran at full speed to alarm the camp and begin a search. But where were they to search?—that was the question. There were four points to the compass—though they knew nothing about the compass—and the fugitive might have gone off in the direction of any of these, or between them, and it was too dark a night to permit of his trail being followed by sight, for, although the moon might aid them in the open, it would be quite useless in the darkness of the woods.
A hurried council was held, and a good deal of distracting advice given while the young braves were arming themselves. To add to their perplexities, a lad rushed suddenly into the council-tent with glaring eyes, saying that the girl Idazoo had disappeared from the village. This news greatly increased the fury of Alizay, but he had scarcely realised the truth when another lad, with, if possible, still more glaring eyes and a gaping mouth, rushed in to tell that the girl Adolay was also missing. This blew up the agitation to a frenzy of excitement—not usual among the Red men of the north—because the necessity for prompt action was great, while the impossibility of doing anything definite was greater.
It was just at this point, when the clamour was at its height, that a sound was heard which instantly produced dead silence, while every man and boy became as if petrified, with eyes enlarged and ears cocked to listen.
Again the sound was heard—a distant yell undoubtedly, coming from the direction of the cliff.
All the self-possession and promptitude of the Indians returned in a moment. In a second the braves glided out of the council-tent and disappeared, each making a straight line for the sound, while the women and children left behind listened with profound attention and expectation.
There was no lack of guiding sounds now, for the moment Idazoo managed to clear her mouth of the gag she began and continued a series of shrieks and yells which were intensified in vigour by the fact that she gradually became hysterical as well as wrathful.
The first to reach the spot was Alizay. On beholding him the girl stopped, and, after two or three exasperated echoes had finished their remarks, a profound silence reigned.
Lovers among the Dogribs are not yet very gallant. Civilisation may do something for them, as to this, in time.
“You can make a noise!” said the youth, stepping up to her.
“I have reason to do so,” replied the maiden, somewhat abashed.
“Did Adolay go with him?” asked Alizay as several of the other braves ran up.
“Yes.”
“Willingly?”
“Yes—she helped to tie me and showed him the way.”
“Where did they go?”
“In the direction of the lake.”
Instantly the whole band turned and ran off in the direction mentioned—Alizay being last, as he paused just long enough to cut the bonds of Idazoo, but left her to disentangle herself as she best could.
On reaching the shores of the lake the footsteps of the fugitives showed clear in the moonlight, and the marks of launching the canoe were visible, so that there was no further doubt as to what should be done. The Indians knew well that there was only one outlet from the lake. Their canoes were close by, and their guns and tomahawks in their hands. Nothing therefore required to be done but to embark and give chase. For this purpose two canoes were deemed sufficient, with three men in each.
Magadar took charge of the leading canoe. Alizay steered the other, and the rest of the braves returned to the village to gloat over the news that Idazoo had to tell, to feast on the produce of the previous day’s hunt, and to clear—or obfuscate—their intellects, more or less, with their tobacco-pipes.
As the six pursuers were very wrathful, and pretty strong, they caused their canoes to skim over the lake like swallows, and reached the head of the little river not very long after the fugitives had left it. A stern chase, however, is proverbially a long one, and as they overhauled the chase only inch by inch, there seemed little chance of overtaking it that night. The leaders, however, being men of great endurance, resolved to carry on without rest as long as possible. This they did until about dawn—the same hour at which the fugitives had succumbed—and both parties put ashore at last for a rest, neither being aware of the fact that their separate camping-grounds were not more than three miles apart!
Well was it then for Adolay that her stout protector was a light sleeper, as well as a man of iron frame, and that he had aroused her fully an hour and a half sooner than the time at which the Indians left their camp to resume the chase. It was well, also, that Cheenbuk required but a short rest to recruit his strength and enable him to resume the paddle with his full vigour. The joy, also, consequent upon the discovery that he loved the Indian girl, and that she had made up her mind, without any persuasion on his part, to run away with him, lent additional power to his strong back. Perhaps, also, a sympathetic feeling in the breast of the maiden added to the strength of her well-formed and by no means feeble arm, so that many miles were soon added to the three which intervened between the chasers and the chased. To the horror of Adolay she found when she and Cheenbuk reached the mouth of the river, that the sea was extensively blocked by masses of ice, which extended out as far as the eye could reach.
Although thus encumbered, however, the sea was by no means choked up with it, and to the gaze of the young Eskimo the ice presented no insurmountable obstacle, for his experienced eye could trace leads and lanes of open water as far as the first group of distant islets, which lay like scarce perceptible specks on the horizon.
But to the inexperienced eye of the girl the scene was one of hopeless confusion, and it filled her with sudden alarm and despair, though she possessed more than the usual share of the Dogrib women’s courage. Observing her alarm, Cheenbuk gave her a look of encouragement, but avoided telling her not to be afraid, for his admiration of her was too profound to admit of his thinking that she could really be frightened, whatever her looks might indicate.
“The ice is our friend to-day,” he said, with a cheery smile, as they stood together on the seashore beside their canoe, surveying the magnificent scene of snowy field, fantastic hummock, massive berg, and glittering pinnacle that lay spread out before them.
Adolay felt, but did not express surprise, for she was filled with a most commendable trust in the truth and wisdom as well as the courage of the man to whose care she had committed herself.
“If you say the ice is our friend, it must be so,” she remarked quietly, “but to the Indian girl it seems as if the ice was our foe, for she can see no escape, and my people will be sure to follow us.”
“Let them follow,” returned Cheenbuk, with a quiet laugh, as he re-arranged the lading of the canoe before continuing the voyage. “They won’t follow beyond this place!”
Lifting out the big stone, which had formed a counterpoise to his weight, he flung it on the beach.
“We will change places now, Adolay,” he said, “you have guided our canoe when on the inland waters; it is now my turn to steer, for I understand the sea of ice. Get in, we will start.”
When Magadar and his comrades arrived at the mouth of the Greygoose River and beheld the aspect of the sea, a cry of mingled surprise and disappointment escaped them, but when they had landed and discovered the canoe of the fugitives far away like a speck among the ice-floes, the cry was transmuted into a howl of rage.
“Quick! embark! Let us after them!” shouted Magadar.
“Death to them both!” yelled Alizay.
For a few minutes the Indians followed the lanes of open water, till their turnings began to appear somewhat complicated; then the warlike spirit became a little subdued. Presently one of the Indians discovered—or thought he discovered—that the lead of water was narrowing, and that the ice was closing in.
Promptly both canoes were put about, and the shore was regained with amazing speed.
After that the Dogribs paddled quietly up the Greygoose River, and meekly returned to their woodland home.
Chapter Eleven.Encamped on the Islet.It was with feelings of profound thankfulness and relief that Adolay landed on the first of the islets, and surveyed the chaotic though beautiful floes from which they had escaped.And in truth Cheenbuk had required all his skill and experience more than once to avoid the dangers by which they had been beset, for, although the weather was perfectly calm and the ice nearly motionless, they had frequently to pass through channels so narrow that the slightest current might have caused a nip and obliged them to take hurried refuge on the floes, while, at other times, when compelled to pass rather close to the small bergs, lumps dropped into the water perilously near to them from the overhanging ice-cliffs.“There has been some danger,” remarked the girl, turning to her protector.“All is well when it ends well,” replied the Eskimo, nearly, but unconsciously, quoting Shakespeare. “But the danger was not very great, for if the ice had closed in we could have jumped on it, and carried the canoe to the nearest open water.”“But what if a lump had dropped into the canoe and sunk it?” asked Adolay.“We should have had to scramble on the floes and wait there till—till we died together.”He said this with some degree of solemnity, for it was an uncomfortable reflection.“I would prefer,”—she stopped suddenly, for in the haste of the moment she was going to have said—“that we should live together rather than die together,”—but maiden modesty, not unfamiliar even among savages, restrained her, and Cheenbuk, who was not observant in the matter of imperfect speech, took no notice of the abrupt pause.The evening was far advanced, for it had taken them the whole day to reach the islet, owing to the windings of the lanes of water and the frequency with which they had to turn back in consequence of having run into what may be termed blind alleys. It was resolved, therefore, that they should rest there for the night.As there was no fear, by that time, of their being pursued by Indians, Cheenbuk resolved that they should have a good warm supper to recruit their somewhat exhausted energies. Of course Adolay was only too glad to fall in with this arrangement, and said that she would go along the shore and collect small masses of drift-wood for the fire, while her companion lifted up the canoe and made the encampment.“You will not find much drift-wood, I think,” said Cheenbuk, as she was about to set off, “for the currents don’t set upon this island much. The long point of the bigger island over there turns the currents off from this one, but perhaps you may find a little.”Adolay found this to be true, for she wandered several miles along shore—indeed, went nearly round the islet, which was a low rocky one, almost devoid of verdure—before she had collected a good bundle of dry sticks.Meanwhile the Eskimo set to work with characteristic enthusiasm to arrange the camp. Choosing a spot where a low wall of rock sheltered him from the north, he laid a few stones in a heap to mark the place for the fire. Then he carried up the canoe, and laid it down bottom up, so as to face the fire. Underneath it he made a snug nest of twigs and leaves for Adolay to rest in. Then, on the opposite side of the fire, he made another lair—a sort of open-air nest—for himself, after which he collected a good many of the small dead twigs among the scrub, which he piled up in readiness around a large piece of drift timber he had the good fortune to discover, not far from the spot where they landed.This done, he stood back a few paces and admired his handiwork, his head on one side with quite the air of a connoisseur.Presently he began to wish that Adolay would return, and then sat down to make fire by the slow and laborious Eskimo process of rubbing two pieces of stick rapidly together until the friction should ignite them. He was still absorbed in the work when the Indian girl returned with a bundle of wood which she threw down beside the rest.“You have had better luck than I expected,” said Cheenbuk. “See, I have made you a nest to sleep in,” he added, pointing to the canoe.“It is very nice,” she observed, with an appreciative smile. “What are you doing?”“Making fire,” he answered, resuming his work and continuing it with such vigour that beads of perspiration stood on his brow.Without speaking, the girl went to the canoe and opened a bundle wrapped in deerskin which formed part of its lading. She drew therefrom a fire-bag, richly ornamented with beads, such as Indian chiefs and braves are wont to carry under their belts. It contained the pipe, tinder-box, flint, steel, and tobacco which are usually supplied by the fur-traders to the Red men.Cheenbuk was so interested in the proceedings of his companion that he ceased to carry on his own work, thereby allowing the sticks to cool and losing his labour.“You need not work so hard,” said Adolay, taking a flint, steel, and piece of tinder from the bag and, beginning to strike a light, to the great interest of the Eskimo. “We manage to get fire differently and more easily.”In a few seconds a spark caught on the tinder, which began to smoke, and the girl, wrapping it in a bundle of dry grass, whirled it round at arm’s-length until the draught caused it to burst into flame. Thrusting the burning mass into the heart of the twigs, which had been previously prepared, she glanced up at her protector with a look that said plainly, “Watch, now, the result.”But Cheenbuk required no encouragement to do so. He had been watching all the time with mouth, as well as eyes, wide-open, and a loud “hoi! hoi! ho!” burst from him as the flame leaped up, suffusing the canoe and wall of rock and the near objects with a ruddy glow which paled everything else to a cold grey by contrast.“I’ve seen that once before,” exclaimed Cheenbuk with delight, taking up the fire-bag tenderly, “and have often wished that I had these things for making fire.”“Well, you may have them now. They belonged to my father. All our men carry bags with these things in them.”“And I’ve seen this too—once,” continued the youth, smiling, as he pulled out a tobacco-pipe. Then he bent his head suddenly, put his nose to the bag, and made a face expressive of supreme disgust.“Ho! and I’ve seen this too. I have tasted it, and after tasting it I was very miserable—so miserable that I hope never to be as miserable again!”As he spoke he looked at Adolay with that extreme solemnity which was one of the characteristics of his face.The girl returned the look, but did not smile. She did not speak, but waited for more.“The man who showed me these things was a good man,” continued Cheenbuk. “I do not know his name, but I liked him much. Yet I think he was not wise to fill his mouth with smoke and his inside with sickness.”“Was he sick?” asked Adolay.“No—he was not, but—I was.”While he was speaking he drew a long piece of Canada twist tobacco out of the bag, and looked at it sagaciously for some time, nodding his head as if he knew all about it.“Yes, that is the thing he put in the pipe, and, after making a small fire over it, drew the smoke into himself. At first I thought he would die, or catch fire and burst—but he—he didn’t, and he seemed to like it.”“All our men like it,” said Adolay; “they smoke every day—sometimes all day. And some of our women like it too.”“Doyoulike it?” asked the Eskimo, quickly.“No, I don’t like it.”“Good—that is well. Now, we will cook some of your dried meat for supper.”By that time the fire was blazing cheerily. As the shades of night deepened, the circle of light grew more and more ruddy until it seemed like a warm cosy chamber in the heart of a cold grey setting. A couple of small stakes were thrust into the ground in such a way that the two pieces of venison impaled on them were presented to the heart of the fire. Soon a frizzling sound was heard; then odours of a kind dear to the hearts of hungry souls—to say nothing of their noses—began to arise, and the couple thus curiously thrown together sat down side by side to enjoy themselves, and supply the somewhat clamorous demands of Nature.They said little while feeding, but when the venison steaks had well-nigh disappeared, a word or two began to pass to and fro. At last Cheenbuk arose, and, taking a small cup of birch-bark, which, with a skin of water, formed part of the supplies provided by Adolay, he filled it to the brim, and the two concluded their supper with the cheering fluid.“Ah!” sighed the girl, when she had disposed of her share, “the white traders bring us a black stuff which we mix with water hot, and find it very good to drink.”“Yes? What is it?” asked Cheenbuk, applying his lips a second time with infinite zest to the water.“I know not what it is. The white men call it tee,” said Adolay, dwelling with affectionate emphasis on theee’s.“Ho! I should like to taste that tee–ee,” said the youth, with exaggerated emphasis on theee’s. “Is it better than water?”“I’m not sure of that,” answered the girl, with a gaze of uncertainty at the fire, “but we like it better than water—the women do; the men are fonder of fire-water, when they can get it, but the white traders seldom give us any, and they never give us much. We women are very glad of that, for the fire-water makes our men mad and wish to fight. Tee, when we take too much of it—which we always do—only makes us sick.”“Strange,” said Cheenbuk, with a look of profundity worthy of Solomon, “that your people should be so fond of smokes and drinks that make them sick and mad when they have so much of the sparkling water that makes us comfortable!”Adolay made no reply to this, for her mind was not by nature philosophically disposed, though she was intelligent enough to admire the sagacity of a remark that seemed to her fraught with illimitable significance.“Have you any more strange things in your bundle?” asked the Eskimo, whose curiosity was awakened by what had already been extracted from it. “Have you some of the tee, or the fire-water, or any more of the thing that smokes—what you call it?”“Tubuko—no, I have no more of that than you saw in the fire-bag. The white men sometimes call it bukey, and I have no fire-water or tee. Sometimes we put a nice sweet stuff into the tee which the white men call shoogir. The Indian girls are very fond of shoogir. They like it best without being mixed with water and tee. But we have that in our own land. We make it from the juice of a tree.”The interest with which Cheenbuk gazed into the girl’s face while she spoke, was doubtless due very much to the prettiness thereof, but it is only just to add that the number and nature of the absolutely new subjects which were thus opened up to him had something to do with it. His imperfect knowledge of her language, however, had a bamboozling effect.“Here is a thing which I think you will be glad to see,” continued the girl, as she extracted a small hatchet from the bundle.“Yes indeed; that is averygood thing,” said the youth, handling the implement with almost affectionate tenderness. “I had one once—and that, too, is a fine thing,” he added, as she drew a scalping-knife from her bundle.“You may have them both,” she said; “I knew you would need them on the journey.”Cheenbuk was too much lost in admiration of the gifts—which to him were so splendid—that he failed to find words to express his gratitude, but, seizing a piece of firewood and resting it on another piece, he set to work with the hatchet, and sent the chips flying in all directions for some time, to the amusement, and no small surprise, of his companion. Then he laid down the axe, and, taking up the scalping-knife, began to whittle sticks with renewed energy. Suddenly he paused and looked at Adolay with ineffable delight.“They are good?” she remarked with a cheerful nod.“Good, good, very good! We have nothing nearly so good. All our things are made of bone or stone.”“Now,” returned the girl, with a blink of her lustrous eyes, and a yawn of her pretty mouth, which Nature had not yet taught her to conceal with her little hand, “now, I am sleepy. I will lie down.”Cheenbuk replied with a smile, and pointed to the canoe with his nose.Adolay took the hint, crept into the nest which the gallant youth had prepared for her, curled herself up like a hedgehog, and was sound asleep in five minutes.The Eskimo, meanwhile, resumed his labours with the scalping-knife, and whittled on far into the night—whittled until he had reduced every stick within reach of his hand to a mass of shavings—a beaming childlike glow of satisfaction resting on his handsome face all the while, until the embers of the fire began to sink low, and only an occasional flicker of flame shot up to enlighten the increasing darkness. Then he laid the two implements down and covered them carefully with a piece of deerskin, while his countenance resumed its wonted gravity of expression.Drawing up his knees until his chin rested on them, and clasping his hands round them, he sat for a long time brooding there and gazing into the dying embers of the fire; then he rose, stretched himself, and sauntered down to the shore.The night, although dark for the Arctic regions at that time of the year, was not by any means obscure. On the contrary, it might have passed for a very fair moonlight night in more southern climes, and the flush of the coming day in the eastern sky was beginning to warm the tops of the higher among the ice-masses, thereby rendering the rest of the scene more coldly grey. The calm which had favoured the escape of our fugitives still prevailed, and the open spaces had gradually widened until the floes had assumed the form of ghostly white islets floating in a blue-black sea, in which the fantastic cliffs, lumps, and pinnacles were sharply reflected as in a mirror.There was a solemnity and profound quietude about the scene and the hour which harmonised well with the sedate spirit of the young Eskimo, as he stood there for a long time contemplating the wonders and the beauties of the world around and about him.We know not what passes through the minds of untutored men in such circumstances, but who shall dare to say that the Spirit of their Creator may not be holding intercourse with them at such times?Turning his back at length upon the sea, Cheenbuk returned to the camp, lay down on the couch which he had made for himself on the opposite side of the fire from the canoe, and, in a few moments more, was in the health- and strength-restoring regions of Oblivion.
It was with feelings of profound thankfulness and relief that Adolay landed on the first of the islets, and surveyed the chaotic though beautiful floes from which they had escaped.
And in truth Cheenbuk had required all his skill and experience more than once to avoid the dangers by which they had been beset, for, although the weather was perfectly calm and the ice nearly motionless, they had frequently to pass through channels so narrow that the slightest current might have caused a nip and obliged them to take hurried refuge on the floes, while, at other times, when compelled to pass rather close to the small bergs, lumps dropped into the water perilously near to them from the overhanging ice-cliffs.
“There has been some danger,” remarked the girl, turning to her protector.
“All is well when it ends well,” replied the Eskimo, nearly, but unconsciously, quoting Shakespeare. “But the danger was not very great, for if the ice had closed in we could have jumped on it, and carried the canoe to the nearest open water.”
“But what if a lump had dropped into the canoe and sunk it?” asked Adolay.
“We should have had to scramble on the floes and wait there till—till we died together.”
He said this with some degree of solemnity, for it was an uncomfortable reflection.
“I would prefer,”—she stopped suddenly, for in the haste of the moment she was going to have said—“that we should live together rather than die together,”—but maiden modesty, not unfamiliar even among savages, restrained her, and Cheenbuk, who was not observant in the matter of imperfect speech, took no notice of the abrupt pause.
The evening was far advanced, for it had taken them the whole day to reach the islet, owing to the windings of the lanes of water and the frequency with which they had to turn back in consequence of having run into what may be termed blind alleys. It was resolved, therefore, that they should rest there for the night.
As there was no fear, by that time, of their being pursued by Indians, Cheenbuk resolved that they should have a good warm supper to recruit their somewhat exhausted energies. Of course Adolay was only too glad to fall in with this arrangement, and said that she would go along the shore and collect small masses of drift-wood for the fire, while her companion lifted up the canoe and made the encampment.
“You will not find much drift-wood, I think,” said Cheenbuk, as she was about to set off, “for the currents don’t set upon this island much. The long point of the bigger island over there turns the currents off from this one, but perhaps you may find a little.”
Adolay found this to be true, for she wandered several miles along shore—indeed, went nearly round the islet, which was a low rocky one, almost devoid of verdure—before she had collected a good bundle of dry sticks.
Meanwhile the Eskimo set to work with characteristic enthusiasm to arrange the camp. Choosing a spot where a low wall of rock sheltered him from the north, he laid a few stones in a heap to mark the place for the fire. Then he carried up the canoe, and laid it down bottom up, so as to face the fire. Underneath it he made a snug nest of twigs and leaves for Adolay to rest in. Then, on the opposite side of the fire, he made another lair—a sort of open-air nest—for himself, after which he collected a good many of the small dead twigs among the scrub, which he piled up in readiness around a large piece of drift timber he had the good fortune to discover, not far from the spot where they landed.
This done, he stood back a few paces and admired his handiwork, his head on one side with quite the air of a connoisseur.
Presently he began to wish that Adolay would return, and then sat down to make fire by the slow and laborious Eskimo process of rubbing two pieces of stick rapidly together until the friction should ignite them. He was still absorbed in the work when the Indian girl returned with a bundle of wood which she threw down beside the rest.
“You have had better luck than I expected,” said Cheenbuk. “See, I have made you a nest to sleep in,” he added, pointing to the canoe.
“It is very nice,” she observed, with an appreciative smile. “What are you doing?”
“Making fire,” he answered, resuming his work and continuing it with such vigour that beads of perspiration stood on his brow.
Without speaking, the girl went to the canoe and opened a bundle wrapped in deerskin which formed part of its lading. She drew therefrom a fire-bag, richly ornamented with beads, such as Indian chiefs and braves are wont to carry under their belts. It contained the pipe, tinder-box, flint, steel, and tobacco which are usually supplied by the fur-traders to the Red men.
Cheenbuk was so interested in the proceedings of his companion that he ceased to carry on his own work, thereby allowing the sticks to cool and losing his labour.
“You need not work so hard,” said Adolay, taking a flint, steel, and piece of tinder from the bag and, beginning to strike a light, to the great interest of the Eskimo. “We manage to get fire differently and more easily.”
In a few seconds a spark caught on the tinder, which began to smoke, and the girl, wrapping it in a bundle of dry grass, whirled it round at arm’s-length until the draught caused it to burst into flame. Thrusting the burning mass into the heart of the twigs, which had been previously prepared, she glanced up at her protector with a look that said plainly, “Watch, now, the result.”
But Cheenbuk required no encouragement to do so. He had been watching all the time with mouth, as well as eyes, wide-open, and a loud “hoi! hoi! ho!” burst from him as the flame leaped up, suffusing the canoe and wall of rock and the near objects with a ruddy glow which paled everything else to a cold grey by contrast.
“I’ve seen that once before,” exclaimed Cheenbuk with delight, taking up the fire-bag tenderly, “and have often wished that I had these things for making fire.”
“Well, you may have them now. They belonged to my father. All our men carry bags with these things in them.”
“And I’ve seen this too—once,” continued the youth, smiling, as he pulled out a tobacco-pipe. Then he bent his head suddenly, put his nose to the bag, and made a face expressive of supreme disgust.
“Ho! and I’ve seen this too. I have tasted it, and after tasting it I was very miserable—so miserable that I hope never to be as miserable again!”
As he spoke he looked at Adolay with that extreme solemnity which was one of the characteristics of his face.
The girl returned the look, but did not smile. She did not speak, but waited for more.
“The man who showed me these things was a good man,” continued Cheenbuk. “I do not know his name, but I liked him much. Yet I think he was not wise to fill his mouth with smoke and his inside with sickness.”
“Was he sick?” asked Adolay.
“No—he was not, but—I was.”
While he was speaking he drew a long piece of Canada twist tobacco out of the bag, and looked at it sagaciously for some time, nodding his head as if he knew all about it.
“Yes, that is the thing he put in the pipe, and, after making a small fire over it, drew the smoke into himself. At first I thought he would die, or catch fire and burst—but he—he didn’t, and he seemed to like it.”
“All our men like it,” said Adolay; “they smoke every day—sometimes all day. And some of our women like it too.”
“Doyoulike it?” asked the Eskimo, quickly.
“No, I don’t like it.”
“Good—that is well. Now, we will cook some of your dried meat for supper.”
By that time the fire was blazing cheerily. As the shades of night deepened, the circle of light grew more and more ruddy until it seemed like a warm cosy chamber in the heart of a cold grey setting. A couple of small stakes were thrust into the ground in such a way that the two pieces of venison impaled on them were presented to the heart of the fire. Soon a frizzling sound was heard; then odours of a kind dear to the hearts of hungry souls—to say nothing of their noses—began to arise, and the couple thus curiously thrown together sat down side by side to enjoy themselves, and supply the somewhat clamorous demands of Nature.
They said little while feeding, but when the venison steaks had well-nigh disappeared, a word or two began to pass to and fro. At last Cheenbuk arose, and, taking a small cup of birch-bark, which, with a skin of water, formed part of the supplies provided by Adolay, he filled it to the brim, and the two concluded their supper with the cheering fluid.
“Ah!” sighed the girl, when she had disposed of her share, “the white traders bring us a black stuff which we mix with water hot, and find it very good to drink.”
“Yes? What is it?” asked Cheenbuk, applying his lips a second time with infinite zest to the water.
“I know not what it is. The white men call it tee,” said Adolay, dwelling with affectionate emphasis on theee’s.
“Ho! I should like to taste that tee–ee,” said the youth, with exaggerated emphasis on theee’s. “Is it better than water?”
“I’m not sure of that,” answered the girl, with a gaze of uncertainty at the fire, “but we like it better than water—the women do; the men are fonder of fire-water, when they can get it, but the white traders seldom give us any, and they never give us much. We women are very glad of that, for the fire-water makes our men mad and wish to fight. Tee, when we take too much of it—which we always do—only makes us sick.”
“Strange,” said Cheenbuk, with a look of profundity worthy of Solomon, “that your people should be so fond of smokes and drinks that make them sick and mad when they have so much of the sparkling water that makes us comfortable!”
Adolay made no reply to this, for her mind was not by nature philosophically disposed, though she was intelligent enough to admire the sagacity of a remark that seemed to her fraught with illimitable significance.
“Have you any more strange things in your bundle?” asked the Eskimo, whose curiosity was awakened by what had already been extracted from it. “Have you some of the tee, or the fire-water, or any more of the thing that smokes—what you call it?”
“Tubuko—no, I have no more of that than you saw in the fire-bag. The white men sometimes call it bukey, and I have no fire-water or tee. Sometimes we put a nice sweet stuff into the tee which the white men call shoogir. The Indian girls are very fond of shoogir. They like it best without being mixed with water and tee. But we have that in our own land. We make it from the juice of a tree.”
The interest with which Cheenbuk gazed into the girl’s face while she spoke, was doubtless due very much to the prettiness thereof, but it is only just to add that the number and nature of the absolutely new subjects which were thus opened up to him had something to do with it. His imperfect knowledge of her language, however, had a bamboozling effect.
“Here is a thing which I think you will be glad to see,” continued the girl, as she extracted a small hatchet from the bundle.
“Yes indeed; that is averygood thing,” said the youth, handling the implement with almost affectionate tenderness. “I had one once—and that, too, is a fine thing,” he added, as she drew a scalping-knife from her bundle.
“You may have them both,” she said; “I knew you would need them on the journey.”
Cheenbuk was too much lost in admiration of the gifts—which to him were so splendid—that he failed to find words to express his gratitude, but, seizing a piece of firewood and resting it on another piece, he set to work with the hatchet, and sent the chips flying in all directions for some time, to the amusement, and no small surprise, of his companion. Then he laid down the axe, and, taking up the scalping-knife, began to whittle sticks with renewed energy. Suddenly he paused and looked at Adolay with ineffable delight.
“They are good?” she remarked with a cheerful nod.
“Good, good, very good! We have nothing nearly so good. All our things are made of bone or stone.”
“Now,” returned the girl, with a blink of her lustrous eyes, and a yawn of her pretty mouth, which Nature had not yet taught her to conceal with her little hand, “now, I am sleepy. I will lie down.”
Cheenbuk replied with a smile, and pointed to the canoe with his nose.
Adolay took the hint, crept into the nest which the gallant youth had prepared for her, curled herself up like a hedgehog, and was sound asleep in five minutes.
The Eskimo, meanwhile, resumed his labours with the scalping-knife, and whittled on far into the night—whittled until he had reduced every stick within reach of his hand to a mass of shavings—a beaming childlike glow of satisfaction resting on his handsome face all the while, until the embers of the fire began to sink low, and only an occasional flicker of flame shot up to enlighten the increasing darkness. Then he laid the two implements down and covered them carefully with a piece of deerskin, while his countenance resumed its wonted gravity of expression.
Drawing up his knees until his chin rested on them, and clasping his hands round them, he sat for a long time brooding there and gazing into the dying embers of the fire; then he rose, stretched himself, and sauntered down to the shore.
The night, although dark for the Arctic regions at that time of the year, was not by any means obscure. On the contrary, it might have passed for a very fair moonlight night in more southern climes, and the flush of the coming day in the eastern sky was beginning to warm the tops of the higher among the ice-masses, thereby rendering the rest of the scene more coldly grey. The calm which had favoured the escape of our fugitives still prevailed, and the open spaces had gradually widened until the floes had assumed the form of ghostly white islets floating in a blue-black sea, in which the fantastic cliffs, lumps, and pinnacles were sharply reflected as in a mirror.
There was a solemnity and profound quietude about the scene and the hour which harmonised well with the sedate spirit of the young Eskimo, as he stood there for a long time contemplating the wonders and the beauties of the world around and about him.
We know not what passes through the minds of untutored men in such circumstances, but who shall dare to say that the Spirit of their Creator may not be holding intercourse with them at such times?
Turning his back at length upon the sea, Cheenbuk returned to the camp, lay down on the couch which he had made for himself on the opposite side of the fire from the canoe, and, in a few moments more, was in the health- and strength-restoring regions of Oblivion.
Chapter Twelve.Home—Sweet Home—and Smoke, etcetera.The favouring calm continued until Cheenbuk with his companion arrived at Waruskeek.It was about mid-day when their canoe turned round the headland and entered the inlet near the head of which lay the Eskimo village.The boy Anteek happened to be standing on the shore at the time, beside the young girl Nootka. They were looking out to sea, and observed the canoe the moment it turned the point of rocks.“Hoi-oi!” yelled Anteek with an emphasis that caused the inhabitants of the whole village to leap out of every hut with the celerity of squirrels, and rush to the shore. Here those who had first arrived were eagerly commenting on the approaching visitors.“A kayak of the Fire-spouters!” cried Anteek, with a look of intense glee, for nothing was so dear to the soul of that volatile youth, as that which suggested danger, except, perhaps, that which involved fun.“The kayak is indeed that of a Fire-spouter,” said old Mangivik, shaking his grey head, “but I don’t think any Fire-spouter among them would be such a fool as to run his head into our very jaws.”“I’m not ready to agree with you, old man,” began Gartok.“No; you’re never ready to agree with any one!” growled Mangivik parenthetically.“For the Fire-spouters,” continued Gartok, disregarding the growl, “are afraid of nothing. Why should they be when they can spout wounds and death so easily?”Poor Gartok spoke feelingly, for his wounded leg had reduced his vigour considerably, and he was yet only able to limp about with the aid of a stick, while his lieutenant Ondikik was reduced to skin and bone by the injury to his back.Suddenly Mangivik became rather excited.“Woman,” he said earnestly to his wife, who stood beside him, “do you see who steers the kayak? Look, your eyes are better than mine.”“No. I do not.”“Look again!” cried Anteek, pushing forward at that moment. “He is not a Fire-spouter. He isone of us! But the one in front is a Fire-spouter woman. Look at the man! Don’t you know him?”There was an intensity of suppressed fervour in the manner of the boy, and an unwonted glitter in his eyes, which impressed every one who noticed him.“Yes, he is one of us,” said Mangivik, shading his eyes with one hand, “and he has stolen a Fire-spouting girl with her kayak!”There was a look of pride in the face of the old man as he spoke, but it was as nothing to the shout of triumph—the shriek of ecstasy—that burst from Anteek as he uttered the word—“Cheenbuk!”Just then a strong clear voice came rolling over the water to the shore, and a roar of joy burst from the whole assemblage, for there was no mistaking the voice of their comrade and best hunter. The hearts of Nootka and her mother beat with no ordinary flutter as they heard the familiar shout, and as for Anteek, he went into a paroxysm of delight, which he sought to relieve by bounding and yelling till the canoe touched the shore. Then, by a powerful effort, he subdued himself, and turned his energies into a prolonged look of unutterable amazement at Adolay.Of course the eyes of the entire population were turned in the same direction—for Eskimos do not count it rude to stare—so that the poor girl felt somewhat abashed, and shrank a little behind her stout protector.Observing the action, Cheenbuk took hold of her arm gently and led her towards his mother.“This is my mother, Adolay,” he said; “she will take care of you.”“Yourwife?” asked Mrs Mangivik, with an anxious look.“No, not my wife,” replied the youth, with a laugh. “Take her to our hut, you and Nootka, while I go and speak with the men.—She saved my life, father,” he added, turning to Mangivik, “be good to her.”On hearing this, Nootka and her mother took the girl affectionately by both hands and led her away.Cheenbuk meanwhile went up to the big hut, just outside of which was held a meeting of nearly the whole population, to receive an account of his adventures from the man whom they had long ago given up as lost.“My friends,” he began, surveying the expectant assembly with a grave straightforward look, “when I went by myself to the Whale River, my intention was to hunt around and find out if there were many birds and beasts on lands near to it, and if many men lived or hunted there, for it came into my mind that this little island of Waruskeek is not the best place in the world to live in, for our tribe is continually increasing. I thought that if there were Fire-spouters there already, we must be content with the lands we have got, for it is not right to take what belongs to other men.”Cheenbuk paused here and looked round, because he knew that he was treading on somewhat new and delicate ground in thus asserting a principle ofright; and he was not mistaken, for, while the most of his audience remained silent, several of them expressed dissent.“Besides,” he continued, “it is not wise to attack men with fire-spouters, which send into their enemies heavy little things like that which was lately picked out of Gartok’s leg; the same as still seems to be sticking in Ondikik’s back.”“Ho! ho!” exclaimed a number of the men, as if that truth commended itself to their understandings.“Well, when I got to the river, I found plenty of white-whales at the mouth of it, and great plenty of birds of all kinds, and of deer—a land good for man to dwell in, with many trees that would make sledge-runners, and much dead wood for our fires, and no one living there, nor signs of anybody. Then I thought to myself, Why should we live always among the floes and bergs? The few Fire-spouters whom we have seen and heard of have better food, better homes, better tools of every kind. Why should not we have the same?”Here the wise Cheenbuk drew from the breast of his seal-skin coat the axe and scalping-knife which Adolay had given him, and held them up.This was a politic move, for it won over almost the entire audience to the young hunter’s views, while looks of ardent admiration were bestowed on the coveted implements.“When men find it not easy to get food,” resumed Cheenbuk, in the tone and with the air of a man who has much to say and means to say it, “they change to some place where hunting is better. When fish become scarce, they do not remain still, but go to places where the fishing is better. They always seek for something that is better and better. Is this not true? Is this not wise?”“Ho! ho!” exclaimed the assembly, assenting.“Why, then, should not we go to a land where there is much that is far better than we find here, and live as the Fire-spouters live? Did the Great Maker of all things intend that we should remain content with these treeless islands among the ice, when there are lands not very far away where we may find much of all kinds of things that are far better? If it is wise to change our hunting and fishing grounds close at hand, surely it may be wise to change to those that are far away—especially when we know that they are better, and likely to make us more comfortable and happy.”This suggestion was such a tremendous innovation on ordinary Eskimo ideas, such a radical conception of change and upheaval of age-long habits, that the assembly gazed in awe-struck and silent wonder at the bold young man, much as the members of Parliament of the last century might have gazed if any reckless M.P. had dared to propose universal suffrage or vote by ballot, or to suggest that measures should henceforth be framed in accordance with the Golden Rule.“After I had travelled a short way inland,” continued Cheenbuk, “I met a Fire-spouter. He was all alone. No one was with him. He pointed his spouter at me, and it clicked but would not spout—I don’t know why. I threw my spear. It went straight—as you know it always does—but the man was quick; he put his head to one side and escaped. Again he pointed his spouter at me, but again it only clicked. Then I rushed upon him and caught hold of it before it could spout. We wrestled—but he was a very strong man, and I could not overcome him—and he could not overcome me. Our breath came short. The sweat poured down our faces and our eyes glared; but when we looked steadily into each other’s eyes we saw that we were both men of peace. We let our bodies go soft, and dropped the spouter on the ground.“‘Why should we fight?’ said he.“‘That was just in my thought,’ said I.“So we stood up, and he took hold of my hand in the way that the white traders do, and squeezed it. I will show you how.—Give me your hand, Anteek—no, the other one.”The boy extended his hand, and Cheenbuk, grasping it, gave it a squeeze that caused the little fellow to yell and throw the assembly into convulsions of laughter, for Eskimos, unlike the sedate Indians, dearly love a practical joke.From this point Cheenbuk related the rest of his interview with the Indian, and was particularly graphic in his description of the pipe, which he exhibited to them, though he refrained from any reference to its effect upon himself. Then he discoursed of his subsequent exploration of the mainland, and finally came to the point where he met and rescued Rinka.—“But tell me, before I speak more, is Rinka dead?”“No, she is getting well.”“That is good,” he continued, in a tone of satisfaction. “Old Uleeta, I doubt not, told you of the fight I had with the Fire-spouters?”“She did,” cried Anteek, with delight, “and how you gave them sore hearts!”“H’m! they gave me a sore heart too; but I don’t care now! And they would have roasted me alive, but one of their girls had pity on me, helped me to escape, and came away with me. Adolay is her name—the girl you saw to-day.”“Ho! ho! hoi-oi?” broke forth the chorus of satisfaction.“Yes, but for her,” continued Cheenbuk, “I should have been under the ground and my hair would have been fluttering on the dress of a Fire-spouter chief by this time. Now, I have promised this girl that I will get a large party of our young men to go back with her to Whale River and give her back to her father and mother.”At this there were strong murmurs of dissent, and a man whom we have not yet introduced to the reader lifted up his voice.This man’s name was Aglootook. He was the medicine-man of the tribe—a sort of magician; a sharp, clever, unscrupulous, presumptuous, and rather fine looking-fellow, who held the people in some degree of subjection through their superstitious fears, though there were some of the men among them who would not give in to his authority. As Eskimos have no regular chiefs, this man tried to occupy the position of one. He had just returned from a hunting expedition the day before, and was jealous of the interest aroused by Cheenbuk’s arrival. Moreover, Cheenbuk was one of the few men of the tribe whom he disliked, and rather feared.“What folly is this that I hear?” said Aglootook, as he frowned on the assembly. “Are we to get up a war-party and put ourselves to all this trouble for a woman—and a Fire-spouter woman!”“It is not a war-party that I want,” said Cheenbuk quietly. “It is a peace-party, and such a strong one that there will be no fear of war. I will conduct it, and, as I know the way, will go by myself unarmed to the village of the men of the woods, tell them that I have brought back their girl, and that a large party of my people are waiting at the mouth of the river with plenty of skins and walrus teeth and other things to trade with them.”“But does any one think they will believe that?” said Aglootook with something of scorn in his looks and tone. “Will the Fire-spouters not accept the girl and roast Cheenbuk, and then meet us with their spouters and kill many of us, even though we should beat them at last?”“It is my opinion there is something in that,” remarked Mangivik.“Besides,” continued the magician, “what folly is it to talk of changing our customs, which have never been changed since the First Man created fish and animals! Are we not satisfied with whales and walruses, bears and seals, deer and birds? Is not our snow igloe as comfortable as the Fire-spouters’ skin tent? What do we care for their ornaments or other things? What does Cheenbuk know about the Great Maker of all things? Has he seen him? Has he talked with him? If there is such a Maker, did he not place us here, and surround us with all the things that we need, and intend us to remain here? Why should we go and look for better things? If he had thought that woods and lakes and rivers had been good for us, would he not have made these things here for us, so that we should have no need to go far away to seek for them—”“Ay, and if Aglootook is right,” interrupted Cheenbuk in a calm but firm voice, “why should we go far away to seek the bear, the walrus, and the seal? Why does Aglootook go hunting at all? If the Great Maker thought these things good for us, would he not have made them to walk up to our igloes and ask to be killed and eaten? Why should they even do that? why not walk straight down our throats and save all trouble? Is it not rather quite plain that man was made with wants and wishes and the power to satisfy them, and so advance from good to better? Does not Aglootook prove by his own conduct that he thinks so? He might make life easy by sitting near his hut and killing for food the little birds that come about our dwellings, but he goes on long hard journeys, and takes much trouble, for he knows that slices of fat seal and walrus-ribs are better than little birds!”There was a general laugh at the expense of the magician, for his mental powers were inferior to those of Cheenbuk, and he felt himself unable to see through the entanglement of his logic.“Boh!” he ejaculated, with a sweep of his long arm, as if to clear away such ridiculous arguments. “What stuff is this that I hear? Surely Cheenbuk has been smitten with the folly of the Fire-spouters. His words are like a lamp with a very bad wick: it makes too much smoke, and confuses everything near it.”“Aglootook is right,” said Cheenbuk, who resolved to end the dispute at this point, “many words are like the smoke of a bad lamp: they confuse, especially when they are not well-understood, but the Fire-spouters confuse themselves with real smoke as well as with words. See, here is one of their things; the white traders call it a paip, or piep.”As he spoke he opened the fire-bag which Adolay had given him and took out of it the clay pipe, tobacco, and materials for producing fire. The medicine-man was instantly forgotten, and the mouths as well as the eyes of the whole assembly opened in unspeakable wonder as Cheenbuk went through the complex processes of filling and lighting the pipe. First he cut up some of the Canada twist, which, he explained, was the tubuk of the white men. Then having filled the pipe, he proceeded to strike a light with flint and steel. In this he was not very successful at first, not yet having had much practice. He chipped his knuckles a good deal, and more than once knocked the flint and tinder out of his fingers. But his audience was not critical. They regarded this as part of the performance. When, however, he at last struck a succession of sparks, he also struck an equal number of short, sharp expressions of astonishment out of his friends, and when the tinder caught there was a suppressed grunt of surprise and pleasure; but when he put the fire into the pipe and began to smoke, there burst forth a prolonged shout of laughter. To see a man smoking like a bad lamp was a joke that seemed to tickle those unsophisticated children of the ice immensely.“Is it good?” asked one. “Do you like it?” cried another. “Let me try it!” begged a third.Mindful of past experiences, Cheenbuk did not indulge in many whiffs.“No, no,” he said, taking the pipe from his lips with solemn gravity. “Not every one who wishes it shall have a taste of this to-day. Only a great man of our tribe shall try it. Some one who has done great things above his fellows.”He looked pointedly at Aglootook as he spoke, with solemnity on his face but mischief in his heart.Oolalik, however, with the reverse of mischief in his heart, interfered unwittingly with his designs. He seized hold of Anteek, who chanced to be near him, and thrust him forward.“Here,” said he, “is one of the great ones of our tribe, at least he will be one if he lives long, for he has killed a walrus all by himself—on land too!”The boy, although pretty full of what is known among the civilised as “cheek,” was almost overwhelmed by this public recognition of his prowess, and was about to retire with a half-shy expression, when the audience received the proposal with a burst of applause.“Yes, yes,” they cried; “he is a brave boy: let him try it.”Seeing that they were set upon it, Cheenbuk handed the pipe to the boy, and bade him draw the smoke in and puff it out, taking care not to swallow it.But Anteek did swallow some at first and choked a little, to the great amusement of the assembly. His pride carried him through, however; he tried again, and was successful. Then his “cheek” came back and he went on, puffing out far larger volumes than his instructor had done.“You had better stop,” said Cheenbuk, reaching out his hand to take the pipe; but the boy dodged him with a laugh and went on worse than ever. Seeing this, Cheenbuk smiled significantly and waited. He had not to wait long. Suddenly the face of Anteek became unusually pale. Placing the pipe hurriedly in the bands of a man near him, he bolted out of the hut and disappeared.He was not seen again during the remainder of that conference!
The favouring calm continued until Cheenbuk with his companion arrived at Waruskeek.
It was about mid-day when their canoe turned round the headland and entered the inlet near the head of which lay the Eskimo village.
The boy Anteek happened to be standing on the shore at the time, beside the young girl Nootka. They were looking out to sea, and observed the canoe the moment it turned the point of rocks.
“Hoi-oi!” yelled Anteek with an emphasis that caused the inhabitants of the whole village to leap out of every hut with the celerity of squirrels, and rush to the shore. Here those who had first arrived were eagerly commenting on the approaching visitors.
“A kayak of the Fire-spouters!” cried Anteek, with a look of intense glee, for nothing was so dear to the soul of that volatile youth, as that which suggested danger, except, perhaps, that which involved fun.
“The kayak is indeed that of a Fire-spouter,” said old Mangivik, shaking his grey head, “but I don’t think any Fire-spouter among them would be such a fool as to run his head into our very jaws.”
“I’m not ready to agree with you, old man,” began Gartok.
“No; you’re never ready to agree with any one!” growled Mangivik parenthetically.
“For the Fire-spouters,” continued Gartok, disregarding the growl, “are afraid of nothing. Why should they be when they can spout wounds and death so easily?”
Poor Gartok spoke feelingly, for his wounded leg had reduced his vigour considerably, and he was yet only able to limp about with the aid of a stick, while his lieutenant Ondikik was reduced to skin and bone by the injury to his back.
Suddenly Mangivik became rather excited.
“Woman,” he said earnestly to his wife, who stood beside him, “do you see who steers the kayak? Look, your eyes are better than mine.”
“No. I do not.”
“Look again!” cried Anteek, pushing forward at that moment. “He is not a Fire-spouter. He isone of us! But the one in front is a Fire-spouter woman. Look at the man! Don’t you know him?”
There was an intensity of suppressed fervour in the manner of the boy, and an unwonted glitter in his eyes, which impressed every one who noticed him.
“Yes, he is one of us,” said Mangivik, shading his eyes with one hand, “and he has stolen a Fire-spouting girl with her kayak!”
There was a look of pride in the face of the old man as he spoke, but it was as nothing to the shout of triumph—the shriek of ecstasy—that burst from Anteek as he uttered the word—“Cheenbuk!”
Just then a strong clear voice came rolling over the water to the shore, and a roar of joy burst from the whole assemblage, for there was no mistaking the voice of their comrade and best hunter. The hearts of Nootka and her mother beat with no ordinary flutter as they heard the familiar shout, and as for Anteek, he went into a paroxysm of delight, which he sought to relieve by bounding and yelling till the canoe touched the shore. Then, by a powerful effort, he subdued himself, and turned his energies into a prolonged look of unutterable amazement at Adolay.
Of course the eyes of the entire population were turned in the same direction—for Eskimos do not count it rude to stare—so that the poor girl felt somewhat abashed, and shrank a little behind her stout protector.
Observing the action, Cheenbuk took hold of her arm gently and led her towards his mother.
“This is my mother, Adolay,” he said; “she will take care of you.”
“Yourwife?” asked Mrs Mangivik, with an anxious look.
“No, not my wife,” replied the youth, with a laugh. “Take her to our hut, you and Nootka, while I go and speak with the men.—She saved my life, father,” he added, turning to Mangivik, “be good to her.”
On hearing this, Nootka and her mother took the girl affectionately by both hands and led her away.
Cheenbuk meanwhile went up to the big hut, just outside of which was held a meeting of nearly the whole population, to receive an account of his adventures from the man whom they had long ago given up as lost.
“My friends,” he began, surveying the expectant assembly with a grave straightforward look, “when I went by myself to the Whale River, my intention was to hunt around and find out if there were many birds and beasts on lands near to it, and if many men lived or hunted there, for it came into my mind that this little island of Waruskeek is not the best place in the world to live in, for our tribe is continually increasing. I thought that if there were Fire-spouters there already, we must be content with the lands we have got, for it is not right to take what belongs to other men.”
Cheenbuk paused here and looked round, because he knew that he was treading on somewhat new and delicate ground in thus asserting a principle ofright; and he was not mistaken, for, while the most of his audience remained silent, several of them expressed dissent.
“Besides,” he continued, “it is not wise to attack men with fire-spouters, which send into their enemies heavy little things like that which was lately picked out of Gartok’s leg; the same as still seems to be sticking in Ondikik’s back.”
“Ho! ho!” exclaimed a number of the men, as if that truth commended itself to their understandings.
“Well, when I got to the river, I found plenty of white-whales at the mouth of it, and great plenty of birds of all kinds, and of deer—a land good for man to dwell in, with many trees that would make sledge-runners, and much dead wood for our fires, and no one living there, nor signs of anybody. Then I thought to myself, Why should we live always among the floes and bergs? The few Fire-spouters whom we have seen and heard of have better food, better homes, better tools of every kind. Why should not we have the same?”
Here the wise Cheenbuk drew from the breast of his seal-skin coat the axe and scalping-knife which Adolay had given him, and held them up.
This was a politic move, for it won over almost the entire audience to the young hunter’s views, while looks of ardent admiration were bestowed on the coveted implements.
“When men find it not easy to get food,” resumed Cheenbuk, in the tone and with the air of a man who has much to say and means to say it, “they change to some place where hunting is better. When fish become scarce, they do not remain still, but go to places where the fishing is better. They always seek for something that is better and better. Is this not true? Is this not wise?”
“Ho! ho!” exclaimed the assembly, assenting.
“Why, then, should not we go to a land where there is much that is far better than we find here, and live as the Fire-spouters live? Did the Great Maker of all things intend that we should remain content with these treeless islands among the ice, when there are lands not very far away where we may find much of all kinds of things that are far better? If it is wise to change our hunting and fishing grounds close at hand, surely it may be wise to change to those that are far away—especially when we know that they are better, and likely to make us more comfortable and happy.”
This suggestion was such a tremendous innovation on ordinary Eskimo ideas, such a radical conception of change and upheaval of age-long habits, that the assembly gazed in awe-struck and silent wonder at the bold young man, much as the members of Parliament of the last century might have gazed if any reckless M.P. had dared to propose universal suffrage or vote by ballot, or to suggest that measures should henceforth be framed in accordance with the Golden Rule.
“After I had travelled a short way inland,” continued Cheenbuk, “I met a Fire-spouter. He was all alone. No one was with him. He pointed his spouter at me, and it clicked but would not spout—I don’t know why. I threw my spear. It went straight—as you know it always does—but the man was quick; he put his head to one side and escaped. Again he pointed his spouter at me, but again it only clicked. Then I rushed upon him and caught hold of it before it could spout. We wrestled—but he was a very strong man, and I could not overcome him—and he could not overcome me. Our breath came short. The sweat poured down our faces and our eyes glared; but when we looked steadily into each other’s eyes we saw that we were both men of peace. We let our bodies go soft, and dropped the spouter on the ground.
“‘Why should we fight?’ said he.
“‘That was just in my thought,’ said I.
“So we stood up, and he took hold of my hand in the way that the white traders do, and squeezed it. I will show you how.—Give me your hand, Anteek—no, the other one.”
The boy extended his hand, and Cheenbuk, grasping it, gave it a squeeze that caused the little fellow to yell and throw the assembly into convulsions of laughter, for Eskimos, unlike the sedate Indians, dearly love a practical joke.
From this point Cheenbuk related the rest of his interview with the Indian, and was particularly graphic in his description of the pipe, which he exhibited to them, though he refrained from any reference to its effect upon himself. Then he discoursed of his subsequent exploration of the mainland, and finally came to the point where he met and rescued Rinka.—“But tell me, before I speak more, is Rinka dead?”
“No, she is getting well.”
“That is good,” he continued, in a tone of satisfaction. “Old Uleeta, I doubt not, told you of the fight I had with the Fire-spouters?”
“She did,” cried Anteek, with delight, “and how you gave them sore hearts!”
“H’m! they gave me a sore heart too; but I don’t care now! And they would have roasted me alive, but one of their girls had pity on me, helped me to escape, and came away with me. Adolay is her name—the girl you saw to-day.”
“Ho! ho! hoi-oi?” broke forth the chorus of satisfaction.
“Yes, but for her,” continued Cheenbuk, “I should have been under the ground and my hair would have been fluttering on the dress of a Fire-spouter chief by this time. Now, I have promised this girl that I will get a large party of our young men to go back with her to Whale River and give her back to her father and mother.”
At this there were strong murmurs of dissent, and a man whom we have not yet introduced to the reader lifted up his voice.
This man’s name was Aglootook. He was the medicine-man of the tribe—a sort of magician; a sharp, clever, unscrupulous, presumptuous, and rather fine looking-fellow, who held the people in some degree of subjection through their superstitious fears, though there were some of the men among them who would not give in to his authority. As Eskimos have no regular chiefs, this man tried to occupy the position of one. He had just returned from a hunting expedition the day before, and was jealous of the interest aroused by Cheenbuk’s arrival. Moreover, Cheenbuk was one of the few men of the tribe whom he disliked, and rather feared.
“What folly is this that I hear?” said Aglootook, as he frowned on the assembly. “Are we to get up a war-party and put ourselves to all this trouble for a woman—and a Fire-spouter woman!”
“It is not a war-party that I want,” said Cheenbuk quietly. “It is a peace-party, and such a strong one that there will be no fear of war. I will conduct it, and, as I know the way, will go by myself unarmed to the village of the men of the woods, tell them that I have brought back their girl, and that a large party of my people are waiting at the mouth of the river with plenty of skins and walrus teeth and other things to trade with them.”
“But does any one think they will believe that?” said Aglootook with something of scorn in his looks and tone. “Will the Fire-spouters not accept the girl and roast Cheenbuk, and then meet us with their spouters and kill many of us, even though we should beat them at last?”
“It is my opinion there is something in that,” remarked Mangivik.
“Besides,” continued the magician, “what folly is it to talk of changing our customs, which have never been changed since the First Man created fish and animals! Are we not satisfied with whales and walruses, bears and seals, deer and birds? Is not our snow igloe as comfortable as the Fire-spouters’ skin tent? What do we care for their ornaments or other things? What does Cheenbuk know about the Great Maker of all things? Has he seen him? Has he talked with him? If there is such a Maker, did he not place us here, and surround us with all the things that we need, and intend us to remain here? Why should we go and look for better things? If he had thought that woods and lakes and rivers had been good for us, would he not have made these things here for us, so that we should have no need to go far away to seek for them—”
“Ay, and if Aglootook is right,” interrupted Cheenbuk in a calm but firm voice, “why should we go far away to seek the bear, the walrus, and the seal? Why does Aglootook go hunting at all? If the Great Maker thought these things good for us, would he not have made them to walk up to our igloes and ask to be killed and eaten? Why should they even do that? why not walk straight down our throats and save all trouble? Is it not rather quite plain that man was made with wants and wishes and the power to satisfy them, and so advance from good to better? Does not Aglootook prove by his own conduct that he thinks so? He might make life easy by sitting near his hut and killing for food the little birds that come about our dwellings, but he goes on long hard journeys, and takes much trouble, for he knows that slices of fat seal and walrus-ribs are better than little birds!”
There was a general laugh at the expense of the magician, for his mental powers were inferior to those of Cheenbuk, and he felt himself unable to see through the entanglement of his logic.
“Boh!” he ejaculated, with a sweep of his long arm, as if to clear away such ridiculous arguments. “What stuff is this that I hear? Surely Cheenbuk has been smitten with the folly of the Fire-spouters. His words are like a lamp with a very bad wick: it makes too much smoke, and confuses everything near it.”
“Aglootook is right,” said Cheenbuk, who resolved to end the dispute at this point, “many words are like the smoke of a bad lamp: they confuse, especially when they are not well-understood, but the Fire-spouters confuse themselves with real smoke as well as with words. See, here is one of their things; the white traders call it a paip, or piep.”
As he spoke he opened the fire-bag which Adolay had given him and took out of it the clay pipe, tobacco, and materials for producing fire. The medicine-man was instantly forgotten, and the mouths as well as the eyes of the whole assembly opened in unspeakable wonder as Cheenbuk went through the complex processes of filling and lighting the pipe. First he cut up some of the Canada twist, which, he explained, was the tubuk of the white men. Then having filled the pipe, he proceeded to strike a light with flint and steel. In this he was not very successful at first, not yet having had much practice. He chipped his knuckles a good deal, and more than once knocked the flint and tinder out of his fingers. But his audience was not critical. They regarded this as part of the performance. When, however, he at last struck a succession of sparks, he also struck an equal number of short, sharp expressions of astonishment out of his friends, and when the tinder caught there was a suppressed grunt of surprise and pleasure; but when he put the fire into the pipe and began to smoke, there burst forth a prolonged shout of laughter. To see a man smoking like a bad lamp was a joke that seemed to tickle those unsophisticated children of the ice immensely.
“Is it good?” asked one. “Do you like it?” cried another. “Let me try it!” begged a third.
Mindful of past experiences, Cheenbuk did not indulge in many whiffs.
“No, no,” he said, taking the pipe from his lips with solemn gravity. “Not every one who wishes it shall have a taste of this to-day. Only a great man of our tribe shall try it. Some one who has done great things above his fellows.”
He looked pointedly at Aglootook as he spoke, with solemnity on his face but mischief in his heart.
Oolalik, however, with the reverse of mischief in his heart, interfered unwittingly with his designs. He seized hold of Anteek, who chanced to be near him, and thrust him forward.
“Here,” said he, “is one of the great ones of our tribe, at least he will be one if he lives long, for he has killed a walrus all by himself—on land too!”
The boy, although pretty full of what is known among the civilised as “cheek,” was almost overwhelmed by this public recognition of his prowess, and was about to retire with a half-shy expression, when the audience received the proposal with a burst of applause.
“Yes, yes,” they cried; “he is a brave boy: let him try it.”
Seeing that they were set upon it, Cheenbuk handed the pipe to the boy, and bade him draw the smoke in and puff it out, taking care not to swallow it.
But Anteek did swallow some at first and choked a little, to the great amusement of the assembly. His pride carried him through, however; he tried again, and was successful. Then his “cheek” came back and he went on, puffing out far larger volumes than his instructor had done.
“You had better stop,” said Cheenbuk, reaching out his hand to take the pipe; but the boy dodged him with a laugh and went on worse than ever. Seeing this, Cheenbuk smiled significantly and waited. He had not to wait long. Suddenly the face of Anteek became unusually pale. Placing the pipe hurriedly in the bands of a man near him, he bolted out of the hut and disappeared.
He was not seen again during the remainder of that conference!
Chapter Thirteen.Doings in Waruskeek.While Cheenbuk was thus entrancing the souls of his friends near the big hut, his mother and sister were exercising hospitality to the Indian girl in their private residence. It was rather a dark and smoky residence, with only one hole in the roof, about eight inches square, to let in light. If truth must be told, it was also somewhat dirty, for, besides having only one large room in which living, cooking, receiving company, and sleeping were carried on, the dogs of the family were permitted to repose there—when they were good! Anything approaching to badness ensured their summary and violent ejection.Branching from this family room was a little recess, screened off by skin curtains, which formed Nootka’s private apartment or boudoir. It was singularly unlike the boudoirs of other lands! Black smoke, instead of whitewash, coloured the walls and ceiling. No glass hung on the wall to reflect the visage of the Arctic beauty, but there were several pegs, from one of which hung Nootka’s seal-skin bad-weather jacket, the tadpole-tail of which reached to the ground, while from another depended a pair of her long waterproof boots. One half of the floor being raised about eight inches, constituted the Eskimo maiden’s couch—also her chair and sofa. There was no table, but the skull of a walrus did service as a stool.To this apartment Nootka introduced her young Indian friend, leaving her mother in the outer hall, and the two maidens at once began, as might have been expected, an earnest and confidential conversation. In their eagerness they had not reflected that each knew not one word of the other’s language, but of course the first sentences opened their eyes to the melancholy fact.They had, indeed, been opened already to some extent, but not so impressively as now when they longed for a good talk.“Come here,” said Nootka—of course in Eskimo—as she dragged rather than led her new friend into the boudoir; “I want you to tell me all about your saving my brother’s life.”“I don’t understand a word you say,” replied Adolay—of course in Dogrib Indian—with a look of great perplexity in her wide-open eyes.“Oh! I’m stupid and sorry. I forgot. You don’t speak our language.”“What funny sounds! It seems like nonsense,” remarked Adolay—more to herself than to her friend.“So curious!” soliloquised Nootka; “what one might expect from a seal if it tried to speak. Say that over again. I like to hear it.”The perplexity on the face of the Indian maid deepened, and she shook her head, while the look of fun in that of the Eskimo maiden increased, and she smiled knowingly.Here at last they had hit on common ground—tapped a universal spring of human communication. Adolay at once beamed an answering smile, and displayed all her brilliant teeth in doing so. This drew a soft laugh of pleasure from Nootka and an intelligent nod.Nods and smiles, however, pleasant in their way though they be, form a very imperfect means of intercourse between souls which wish to unite, and the perplexed expression was beginning again to steal over both their youthful countenances, when something in the nature of a happy thought seemed to strike the Indian girl, for a gleam as of sunlight flashed from her eyes and teeth, as she suddenly beat with her little fist three times on her own bosom, exclaiming, “Adolay! Adolay! Adolay!” with much emphasis. Then, poking her finger against her friend’s breast, she added—“You? you?”Here again was “a touch of nature” which made these two damsels “kin.” Although the “You? you?” was not intelligible to the Eskimo, the gaze of inquiry was a familiar tongue. With a smile of delight she nodded, struck her own bosom with her fist, and said, “Nootka! Nootka!” Then, tapping her friend, she said—“Addi-lay?” The Indian, nodding assent, tapped her in return and exclaimed, “No–oot-ko?”After this little sparring match they both burst into a fit of hearty laughter, which roused the curiosity of Mrs Mangivik in the outer hall.“What is the joke?” shouted the old lady, who was hospitably preparing a feast of steaks and ribs for her guest.“Oh, mother, sheisso funny!—Come, Addi-lay, let her hear your fun,” said the girl, taking her guest’s hand and leading her back to the hall. “Her name is Addi-lay. I know, for she told me herself. We quite understand each other already.“Speak to mother, Addi-lay. Tell her something.”“I don’t know what you want me to do, No–oot-ko,” returned the Indian girl, with a bright look, “but I know that whatever you are saying must be kind, for you’ve got such a nice face.”By way of emphasising her opinion she took the face between her hands and laid her own against it.We have never been quite sure as to what Adolay did on this occasion—whether she rubbed noses or chins or touched lips. All that we are sure of is that the operation was equivalent to a kiss, and that it was reciprocated heartily.“Didn’t I tell you, mother, that she was funny? I’ll explain to you what she said when we are alone; but Addi-lay is hungry now, and so am I. Let us feed, mother.”Without more ado the trio sat down beside the cooking-lamp and began to do justice to the savoury viands, the odour of which was so enticing that it was too much for the dogs of the family. These had to be expelled by means of old bones. Mrs Mangivik being an expert shot with such artillery, the hall was soon cleared.After the meal, conversation was resumed, and conducted with considerably greater ease, owing to the chief subject of it being the Indian girl’s costume, which was somewhat elaborate, for, being a chief’s daughter, her dress was in many respects beautiful—especially those portions of it, such as the leggings and the head-dress, which were profusely ornamented with coloured beads and porcupine-quill work. The examination of the various parts occupied a considerable time. The mode of ascertaining names had been already discovered, and looks of admiration require no translation, so that the three women were deeply engaged in a most interesting talk when Cheenbuk and his father entered the hut after the conference.“Ribs, ribs and slices! Quick, woman,” cried Mangivik cheerily as he sat down. “Cheenbuk has been talking and I have been listening till we are both quite hungry.—That is a pretty girl you have brought home with you, my son,” said the old man, with a stare of approval. “Almost as pretty as some of our own girls.”“Much prettier, I think,” returned the youth, as he quietly selected a rib of walrus that seemed suitable to his capacity.“Tell your mother how you got hold of her,” said Mangivik, whose teeth were next moment fastened in a steak.Cheenbuk made no reply. Eskimo manners did not require an answer in the circumstances. But when he had taken the edge off his appetite—and it took a good deal of dental grinding to do that—he looked across at Adolay with a genial expression and began to give his mother and sister a second, and much more graphic, edition of the speech which he had just delivered to the men.Of course the narration served to strengthen the bonds of friendship which had already been formed between the Mangivik family and the Indian girl, who had been thus unexpectedly added to their circle.That evening Nootka begged her brother to give her a lesson in the Dogrib language. On the same evening, during a moonlight ramble, Adolay asked him to give her a little instruction in the Eskimo tongue, and, just before he retired for the night, his mother asked him if he intended to take the Indian girl as one of his wives.“You know, mother,” was Cheenbuk’s reply, “I have always differed from my friends about wives. I think that one wife is enough for one man; sometimes too much for him! I also think that if it is fair for a man to choose a woman, it is also fair for the woman to choose the man. I would gladly take Adolay for a wife, for she is good as well as pretty, but I do not know that she would take me for a husband.”“Have you not asked her, then?” persisted Mrs Mangivik.“No. I have been till now her protector. I can wait. If she wants to return to her people I have promised to take her to them.”“But surely my son is not bound to keep a promise given to one of our fire-spouting enemies?”“That may seem right to you, mother, but it seems wrong to me. I do not understand why I disagree with you, and with most of my people, but there is something inside of me which, I think, isnotme. It tells me not to do many things that I want to do, and sometimes bids me go forward when I wish to draw back. What it is I cannot tell, but I must not disobey it, Iwill notdisobey it.”With this answer the old lady had to be content, for she could extract nothing more from her son after that but a smile.As for old Mangivik, he asked and said nothing, but he thought much.A few days after Cheenbuk’s arrival, it was arranged by the heads of the village that there should be a general scattering of the tribe for a great hunt after seals and wild-fowl, as provisions were not so plentiful as might have been desired. An expedition of this kind was always hailed with great glee by Anteek, whose youth and very excitable disposition were not easily satisfied with the prosaic details of village life.Previous to setting out, however, an event occurred which was well-nigh attended with disastrous consequences.It had been arranged that Cheenbuk and his friends Oolalik and Anteek should keep together in their kayaks, accompanied by an oomiak to carry the game. This woman’s boat was to be manned, so to speak, by young Uleeta, Cowlik, and two other girls. Adolay had been offered a place in it, but she preferred going in her own bark canoe, with the management of which she was familiar. Perhaps a touch of national pride had something to do with this preference of the Indian craft. Nootka, who had made several trials of the canoe, was judged sufficiently expert to wield the bow paddle.While preparations were being made, Adolay and Nootka went to the bay where the canoe was lying—a short distance from the village, on the other side of a high cliff that sheltered the bay from any breeze that might blow in from the sea. The light craft was turned bottom up on the beach, and the two girls carried it down to the water’s edge. Launching it, Nootka got in first, and Adolay was preparing to follow when a boyish shout arrested her, and she saw Anteek come skimming round the point in his kayak, wielding his double-bladed paddle with great dexterity and power. In a few seconds the kayak was alongside the canoe and the boy stepped out upon the shore.“Let me try to steer your canoe,” he said, pointing eagerly to the place where the Indian girl was about to seat herself.Although Adolay did not understand the words, she had no difficulty with the boy’s expressive pantomime. She nodded assent cheerfully. Anteek took the paddle, stepped into her place, and the girl pushed them off into deep water.Delighted with the novelty of their position the two paddled away with great vigour, and were soon a considerable distance from the shore. Then it occurred to Adolay that she would have some fun on her own account, and perhaps give her new friends a surprise. With this intent she floated the kayak and pushed it alongside of a flat stone in the water from which she could step into it. But she found that stepping into a small round hole in the centre of a covered craft was not the same as stepping into her own canoe, and even when, with great care, she succeeded, she found that her garments rendered the process of sitting down rather difficult—not a matter of wonder when we consider that the kayak is meant only for men.However, she succeeded at last, and grasping the paddle pushed off to sea. But the long paddle with its blade at each end perplexed her greatly, and she had not quite overcome the awkwardness and begun to feel somewhat at ease when she chanced to touch on a ledge of rock that cropped up at that place near to the surface. Fortunately the rock was quite smooth, else it would have ripped up the skin with which the vessel was covered, but the shock and the paddle together were too much for the inexperienced girl. She lost her balance, and next moment was in the water with the kayak bottom up, and she incapable of extricating herself from the hole into which she had squeezed.It happened that Anteek and Nootka had observed what Adolay was about, and were watching her with interest, so that before the kayak had turned fairly over their paddles dipped with a flash in the water and they rushed to the rescue. And not a moment too soon, for the poor girl’s power of endurance was almost exhausted when her friends turned the kayak violently up. This was well, and Adolay drew a long gasping breath; but now the inexperience of the rescuers came into play, for, being ignorant of the cranky nature of a birch-bark canoe, they acted without the necessary caution, the canoe overturned and they all found themselves in the water. This time Adolay managed to wriggle out of her position, but being unable to swim she could only cling helplessly to the kayak. Nootka, equally helpless, clung to the canoe. Fortunately Anteek could swim like a fish, and bravely set to work to push both crafts towards the shore. But they were a long way out; the weight of the two girls made them difficult to push, and, being separate, they had a tendency to diverge in different directions.After a few vigorous efforts, the boy, perceiving the difficulty and the extreme danger of their position, at once set up a series of yells that awoke sympathetic echoes in the neighbourhood; but he did not for a moment relax his efforts to push his charge towards the shore.Startled by the sudden outburst of alarming cries, several men ran along shore in the direction whence they came. Foremost among these was the powerful and active Oolalik. On turning the point and seeing what had occurred he plunged into the sea and swam like a dolphin to the rescue. Great was the size of his eyes, and intense the swelling of his heart, when he saw that Nootka was one of the swimmers.“Take care of Addi-lay and the kayak,” he remarked to Anteek as he drew near, “I will look after Nootka and the canoe.”What Nootka felt on hearing these words we cannot tell, but any one might have seen that, despite her unpleasant position, there was a pleased expression on her wet face.A very few minutes more sufficed to bring them all safe to land, and no one was a whit the worse, but as the girls required a complete change of garments, it was finally decided that the hunting expedition should be postponed until the following day.
While Cheenbuk was thus entrancing the souls of his friends near the big hut, his mother and sister were exercising hospitality to the Indian girl in their private residence. It was rather a dark and smoky residence, with only one hole in the roof, about eight inches square, to let in light. If truth must be told, it was also somewhat dirty, for, besides having only one large room in which living, cooking, receiving company, and sleeping were carried on, the dogs of the family were permitted to repose there—when they were good! Anything approaching to badness ensured their summary and violent ejection.
Branching from this family room was a little recess, screened off by skin curtains, which formed Nootka’s private apartment or boudoir. It was singularly unlike the boudoirs of other lands! Black smoke, instead of whitewash, coloured the walls and ceiling. No glass hung on the wall to reflect the visage of the Arctic beauty, but there were several pegs, from one of which hung Nootka’s seal-skin bad-weather jacket, the tadpole-tail of which reached to the ground, while from another depended a pair of her long waterproof boots. One half of the floor being raised about eight inches, constituted the Eskimo maiden’s couch—also her chair and sofa. There was no table, but the skull of a walrus did service as a stool.
To this apartment Nootka introduced her young Indian friend, leaving her mother in the outer hall, and the two maidens at once began, as might have been expected, an earnest and confidential conversation. In their eagerness they had not reflected that each knew not one word of the other’s language, but of course the first sentences opened their eyes to the melancholy fact.
They had, indeed, been opened already to some extent, but not so impressively as now when they longed for a good talk.
“Come here,” said Nootka—of course in Eskimo—as she dragged rather than led her new friend into the boudoir; “I want you to tell me all about your saving my brother’s life.”
“I don’t understand a word you say,” replied Adolay—of course in Dogrib Indian—with a look of great perplexity in her wide-open eyes.
“Oh! I’m stupid and sorry. I forgot. You don’t speak our language.”
“What funny sounds! It seems like nonsense,” remarked Adolay—more to herself than to her friend.
“So curious!” soliloquised Nootka; “what one might expect from a seal if it tried to speak. Say that over again. I like to hear it.”
The perplexity on the face of the Indian maid deepened, and she shook her head, while the look of fun in that of the Eskimo maiden increased, and she smiled knowingly.
Here at last they had hit on common ground—tapped a universal spring of human communication. Adolay at once beamed an answering smile, and displayed all her brilliant teeth in doing so. This drew a soft laugh of pleasure from Nootka and an intelligent nod.
Nods and smiles, however, pleasant in their way though they be, form a very imperfect means of intercourse between souls which wish to unite, and the perplexed expression was beginning again to steal over both their youthful countenances, when something in the nature of a happy thought seemed to strike the Indian girl, for a gleam as of sunlight flashed from her eyes and teeth, as she suddenly beat with her little fist three times on her own bosom, exclaiming, “Adolay! Adolay! Adolay!” with much emphasis. Then, poking her finger against her friend’s breast, she added—“You? you?”
Here again was “a touch of nature” which made these two damsels “kin.” Although the “You? you?” was not intelligible to the Eskimo, the gaze of inquiry was a familiar tongue. With a smile of delight she nodded, struck her own bosom with her fist, and said, “Nootka! Nootka!” Then, tapping her friend, she said—“Addi-lay?” The Indian, nodding assent, tapped her in return and exclaimed, “No–oot-ko?”
After this little sparring match they both burst into a fit of hearty laughter, which roused the curiosity of Mrs Mangivik in the outer hall.
“What is the joke?” shouted the old lady, who was hospitably preparing a feast of steaks and ribs for her guest.
“Oh, mother, sheisso funny!—Come, Addi-lay, let her hear your fun,” said the girl, taking her guest’s hand and leading her back to the hall. “Her name is Addi-lay. I know, for she told me herself. We quite understand each other already.
“Speak to mother, Addi-lay. Tell her something.”
“I don’t know what you want me to do, No–oot-ko,” returned the Indian girl, with a bright look, “but I know that whatever you are saying must be kind, for you’ve got such a nice face.”
By way of emphasising her opinion she took the face between her hands and laid her own against it.
We have never been quite sure as to what Adolay did on this occasion—whether she rubbed noses or chins or touched lips. All that we are sure of is that the operation was equivalent to a kiss, and that it was reciprocated heartily.
“Didn’t I tell you, mother, that she was funny? I’ll explain to you what she said when we are alone; but Addi-lay is hungry now, and so am I. Let us feed, mother.”
Without more ado the trio sat down beside the cooking-lamp and began to do justice to the savoury viands, the odour of which was so enticing that it was too much for the dogs of the family. These had to be expelled by means of old bones. Mrs Mangivik being an expert shot with such artillery, the hall was soon cleared.
After the meal, conversation was resumed, and conducted with considerably greater ease, owing to the chief subject of it being the Indian girl’s costume, which was somewhat elaborate, for, being a chief’s daughter, her dress was in many respects beautiful—especially those portions of it, such as the leggings and the head-dress, which were profusely ornamented with coloured beads and porcupine-quill work. The examination of the various parts occupied a considerable time. The mode of ascertaining names had been already discovered, and looks of admiration require no translation, so that the three women were deeply engaged in a most interesting talk when Cheenbuk and his father entered the hut after the conference.
“Ribs, ribs and slices! Quick, woman,” cried Mangivik cheerily as he sat down. “Cheenbuk has been talking and I have been listening till we are both quite hungry.—That is a pretty girl you have brought home with you, my son,” said the old man, with a stare of approval. “Almost as pretty as some of our own girls.”
“Much prettier, I think,” returned the youth, as he quietly selected a rib of walrus that seemed suitable to his capacity.
“Tell your mother how you got hold of her,” said Mangivik, whose teeth were next moment fastened in a steak.
Cheenbuk made no reply. Eskimo manners did not require an answer in the circumstances. But when he had taken the edge off his appetite—and it took a good deal of dental grinding to do that—he looked across at Adolay with a genial expression and began to give his mother and sister a second, and much more graphic, edition of the speech which he had just delivered to the men.
Of course the narration served to strengthen the bonds of friendship which had already been formed between the Mangivik family and the Indian girl, who had been thus unexpectedly added to their circle.
That evening Nootka begged her brother to give her a lesson in the Dogrib language. On the same evening, during a moonlight ramble, Adolay asked him to give her a little instruction in the Eskimo tongue, and, just before he retired for the night, his mother asked him if he intended to take the Indian girl as one of his wives.
“You know, mother,” was Cheenbuk’s reply, “I have always differed from my friends about wives. I think that one wife is enough for one man; sometimes too much for him! I also think that if it is fair for a man to choose a woman, it is also fair for the woman to choose the man. I would gladly take Adolay for a wife, for she is good as well as pretty, but I do not know that she would take me for a husband.”
“Have you not asked her, then?” persisted Mrs Mangivik.
“No. I have been till now her protector. I can wait. If she wants to return to her people I have promised to take her to them.”
“But surely my son is not bound to keep a promise given to one of our fire-spouting enemies?”
“That may seem right to you, mother, but it seems wrong to me. I do not understand why I disagree with you, and with most of my people, but there is something inside of me which, I think, isnotme. It tells me not to do many things that I want to do, and sometimes bids me go forward when I wish to draw back. What it is I cannot tell, but I must not disobey it, Iwill notdisobey it.”
With this answer the old lady had to be content, for she could extract nothing more from her son after that but a smile.
As for old Mangivik, he asked and said nothing, but he thought much.
A few days after Cheenbuk’s arrival, it was arranged by the heads of the village that there should be a general scattering of the tribe for a great hunt after seals and wild-fowl, as provisions were not so plentiful as might have been desired. An expedition of this kind was always hailed with great glee by Anteek, whose youth and very excitable disposition were not easily satisfied with the prosaic details of village life.
Previous to setting out, however, an event occurred which was well-nigh attended with disastrous consequences.
It had been arranged that Cheenbuk and his friends Oolalik and Anteek should keep together in their kayaks, accompanied by an oomiak to carry the game. This woman’s boat was to be manned, so to speak, by young Uleeta, Cowlik, and two other girls. Adolay had been offered a place in it, but she preferred going in her own bark canoe, with the management of which she was familiar. Perhaps a touch of national pride had something to do with this preference of the Indian craft. Nootka, who had made several trials of the canoe, was judged sufficiently expert to wield the bow paddle.
While preparations were being made, Adolay and Nootka went to the bay where the canoe was lying—a short distance from the village, on the other side of a high cliff that sheltered the bay from any breeze that might blow in from the sea. The light craft was turned bottom up on the beach, and the two girls carried it down to the water’s edge. Launching it, Nootka got in first, and Adolay was preparing to follow when a boyish shout arrested her, and she saw Anteek come skimming round the point in his kayak, wielding his double-bladed paddle with great dexterity and power. In a few seconds the kayak was alongside the canoe and the boy stepped out upon the shore.
“Let me try to steer your canoe,” he said, pointing eagerly to the place where the Indian girl was about to seat herself.
Although Adolay did not understand the words, she had no difficulty with the boy’s expressive pantomime. She nodded assent cheerfully. Anteek took the paddle, stepped into her place, and the girl pushed them off into deep water.
Delighted with the novelty of their position the two paddled away with great vigour, and were soon a considerable distance from the shore. Then it occurred to Adolay that she would have some fun on her own account, and perhaps give her new friends a surprise. With this intent she floated the kayak and pushed it alongside of a flat stone in the water from which she could step into it. But she found that stepping into a small round hole in the centre of a covered craft was not the same as stepping into her own canoe, and even when, with great care, she succeeded, she found that her garments rendered the process of sitting down rather difficult—not a matter of wonder when we consider that the kayak is meant only for men.
However, she succeeded at last, and grasping the paddle pushed off to sea. But the long paddle with its blade at each end perplexed her greatly, and she had not quite overcome the awkwardness and begun to feel somewhat at ease when she chanced to touch on a ledge of rock that cropped up at that place near to the surface. Fortunately the rock was quite smooth, else it would have ripped up the skin with which the vessel was covered, but the shock and the paddle together were too much for the inexperienced girl. She lost her balance, and next moment was in the water with the kayak bottom up, and she incapable of extricating herself from the hole into which she had squeezed.
It happened that Anteek and Nootka had observed what Adolay was about, and were watching her with interest, so that before the kayak had turned fairly over their paddles dipped with a flash in the water and they rushed to the rescue. And not a moment too soon, for the poor girl’s power of endurance was almost exhausted when her friends turned the kayak violently up. This was well, and Adolay drew a long gasping breath; but now the inexperience of the rescuers came into play, for, being ignorant of the cranky nature of a birch-bark canoe, they acted without the necessary caution, the canoe overturned and they all found themselves in the water. This time Adolay managed to wriggle out of her position, but being unable to swim she could only cling helplessly to the kayak. Nootka, equally helpless, clung to the canoe. Fortunately Anteek could swim like a fish, and bravely set to work to push both crafts towards the shore. But they were a long way out; the weight of the two girls made them difficult to push, and, being separate, they had a tendency to diverge in different directions.
After a few vigorous efforts, the boy, perceiving the difficulty and the extreme danger of their position, at once set up a series of yells that awoke sympathetic echoes in the neighbourhood; but he did not for a moment relax his efforts to push his charge towards the shore.
Startled by the sudden outburst of alarming cries, several men ran along shore in the direction whence they came. Foremost among these was the powerful and active Oolalik. On turning the point and seeing what had occurred he plunged into the sea and swam like a dolphin to the rescue. Great was the size of his eyes, and intense the swelling of his heart, when he saw that Nootka was one of the swimmers.
“Take care of Addi-lay and the kayak,” he remarked to Anteek as he drew near, “I will look after Nootka and the canoe.”
What Nootka felt on hearing these words we cannot tell, but any one might have seen that, despite her unpleasant position, there was a pleased expression on her wet face.
A very few minutes more sufficed to bring them all safe to land, and no one was a whit the worse, but as the girls required a complete change of garments, it was finally decided that the hunting expedition should be postponed until the following day.