The Walrus Hunters Part 13

"Do _you_ like 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 pa.s.s 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 the _ee's_.

"Ho! I should like to taste that tee-ee," said the youth, with exaggerated emphasis on the _ee'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 a _very_ good 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 grat.i.tude, 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 amus.e.m.e.nt, 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 l.u.s.trous 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 ma.s.s 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 sh.o.r.e.

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 pa.s.sed 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-ma.s.ses, 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 s.p.a.ces had gradually widened until the floes had a.s.sumed 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 pa.s.ses through the minds of untutored men in such circ.u.mstances, 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 sh.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.e. 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 is _one 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.