The Walrus Hunters Part 33

On sh.o.r.e they found more subjects of interest and perplexity, for here were several mounds marked by crosses, and a large mound surmounted by a pole on the top of which were fluttering a few remnants of red cloth.

The shape of the smaller mounds naturally led them to infer that they were the graves of white men who had died there, but the large mound was inexplicable until n.a.z.inred recollected having seen a flag hoisted on a pole at the fort on Great Bear Lake.

"I remember," he said to Cheenbuk, "that the traders used to hoist a piece of cloth to the top of a pole like this, at times, when something of importance happened. Perhaps the chief of the big canoe died and was buried here, and they hoisted the red cloth over him to mark the place."

"My father may be right," observed the Eskimo; "but why did they put such a heap of stones above him?"

"Perhaps to keep the bears from getting at him," returned the Indian thoughtfully, "or, it may be, to show him great respect."

Resting satisfied with these surmises, the two men returned to their encampment without disturbing the mound, which was, in all probability, a cairn covering a record of the expedition which had come to such an untimely end.

Next day, the moment there was enough of light to enable them to resume the search, the Eskimos hurried on board the ship and began to ransack every hole and corner, and they found much that caused their eyes to glitter with the delight of men who have unexpectedly discovered a mine of gold. Among other things, they found in a small room which had been used as a blacksmith's forge, large quant.i.ties of hoop, bar, and rod-iron. While Cheenbuk and Oolalik were rejoicing over this find, Anteek rushed in upon them in a state of considerable excitement with something in his hand. It was a large watch of the double-cased "warming-pan" tribe.

"Listen!" exclaimed the boy, holding it up to Cheenbuk's ear, and giving it a shake; "it speaks."

"What is it?" murmured the Eskimo.

"I don't know, but it does not like shaking, for it only speaks a little when I shake it. I tried squeezing, but it does not care for that."

Here again n.a.z.inred's superior knowledge came into play, though to a limited extent.

"I have seen a thing like that," he said. "The trader at the great fresh-water lake had one. He carried it in a small bag at his waist, and used often to pull it out and look at it. He never told me what it was for, but once he let me hear it speak. It went on just like this one--_tik, tik, tik_--but it did not require shaking or squeezing. I think it had a tongue like some of our squaws, who never stop speaking.

One day when I went into the trader's house I saw it lying on the thing with four legs which the white men put their food on when they want to eat, and it was talking away to itself as fast as ever."

They were still engaged with this mystery when a cry of delight from Nootka drew them back to the cabin, where they found the girl clothed in a pilot-cloth coat, immensely too large for her. She was standing admiring herself in the mirror--so quickly had her feminine intelligence applied the thing to its proper use; and, from the energetic but abortive efforts she made to wriggle round so as to obtain a view of her back, it might have been supposed that she had been trained to the arts of civilisation from childhood.

With equal and earnest a.s.siduity Cowlik was engaged in adorning her head with a black flannel-lined sou'-wester, but she had some trouble with it, owing to the height of her top-knot of hair.

Ridiculous though the two girls might have looked in our eyes, in those of their companions they only seemed peculiar and interesting, for the step between the sublime and ridiculous is altogether relative, in Eskimo-land as elsewhere. There was no opportunity, however, to dwell long in contemplation of any new thing, for the discoveries came thick and fast. Cowlik had barely succeeded in pulling the ear-pieces of the sou'-wester well down, and tying the strings under her fat chin, when a tremendous clanking was heard, as of some heavy creature approaching the cabin door. Cheenbuk dropped forward the point of his spear, and n.a.z.inred kept his gun handy. Not that they were actually alarmed, of course, but they felt that in such unusual circ.u.mstances the least they could do was to be ready for whatever might befall--or turn up.

A moment later and Aglootook stalked into the cabin, his legs encased in a pair of fishermen's sea-boots, so large that they seemed quite to diminish his natural proportions.

In all their discoveries, however, they did not find a single sc.r.a.p of any kind of food. It was quite clear that the poor fellows had held by the ship as long as provisions lasted, in the hope, no doubt, that they might ultimately succeed in working their way out of the ice, and then, when inevitable starvation stared them in the face, they had tried to escape in their boats, but without success--at least in one case, though how many boats had thus left to undertake the forlorn hope of storming the strongholds of the polar seas it was impossible to tell.

On the second night, as the Eskimos sat in their igloe at supper talking over the events of the day, n.a.z.inred asked Cheenbuk what he intended to do--

"For," said he, "it is not possible to take back with us on one sledge more than a small part of the many good things that we have found."

"The man-of-the-woods is right," interposed the magician; "he is wise.

One sledge cannot carry much. I told you that we were sure to find _something_. Was I not right? Have we not found it? My advice now is that we go back with as much as we can carry, and return with four or five sledges--or even more,--and take home all that it is possible to collect."

"Aglootook is always full of knowledge and wisdom," remarked Cheenbuk, as he drove his powerful teeth into a tough bear-steak, and struggled with it for some moments before continuing his remarks; "but--but--ha!

he does not quite see through an iceberg. I will--(Give me another, Nootka, with more fat on it),--I will go back, as he wisely advises, with as much as the sledge will carry, and will return not only with four or five sledges, but with all the sledges we have got, and all the dogs, and all the men and women and children--even to the smallest babe that wears no clothes and lives in its mother's hood, and sucks blubber.

The whole tribe shall come here and live here, and make use of the good things that have fallen in our way, till the time of open water draws near. Then we will drive to the place where we have left our kayaks and oomiaks, some of us will go to Waruskeek, and some to pay a visit to the Fire-spouters at Whale River.--Give me another lump, Nootka. The last was a little one, and I am hungry."

The grandeur of Cheenbuk's plan, as compared with Aglootook's suggestion, was so great that the poor magician collapsed.

Anteek looked at him. Then he covered his young face with his hands and bent his head forward upon his knees. It was too early for going to rest. The boy might have been sleeping, but there was a slight heaving of the young shoulders which was not suggestive of repose.

Later on in the evening, while n.a.z.inred was enjoying his pipe, and the Eskimos were looking on in unspeakable admiration, Cheenbuk remembered that the last time he quitted the ship he had left his spear behind him.

"I'll go and fetch it," said Anteek, who possessed that amiable and utterly delightful nature which offers to oblige, or do a service, without waiting to be asked. In a few minutes he was out upon the ice on his errand. Soon he gained the snow staircase, and, running up, made his way to the cabin where the spear had been left.

Now it chanced that a polar bear, attracted perhaps by the odour of cooked food, had wandered near to the ship and observed the young Eskimo ascend. Polar bears are not timid. On the contrary, they are usually full of courage. They are also full of curiosity. The night was clear, and when that bear saw the youth go up the stair, it immediately went to the place to inspect it. Courage and caution are not necessarily antagonistic. On arriving at the foot of the stair it paused to paw and otherwise examine it. Then it began to ascend slowly, as if doubtful of consequences.

Now, if it were not for coincidences a great many of the extraordinary events of this life would never have happened. For instance--but the instances are so numerous that it may be well not to begin them. It happened that just as the bear began to ascend the snow staircase Anteek with the spear in his hand began to ascend the companion-ladder. But the chief point of the coincidence lay here--that just as the bear reached the top of the stair the boy reached the very same spot, and next moment the two stood face to face within four feet of each other.

We will not go into the irrelevant question which was the more surprised. Anteek at once uttered a yell, compounded of courage, despair, ferocity, horror, and other ingredients, which startled into wild confusion all the echoes of the cliffs. The bear opened its mouth as if to reply, and the boy instantly rammed the spear into it.

He could not have done anything worse, except run away, for a bear's mouth is tough. Happily, however, the monster was standing in a very upright position, and the violence of the thrust sent him off his balance. He fell backwards down the stair, and came on the ice with an astounding crash that doubled him up and crushed all the wind out of his lungs in a bursting roar.

Fortunately his great weight caused the destruction of five or six of the lower steps, so that when he rose and tried viciously to re-ascend, he was unable to do so.

Of course the uproar brought the men on sh.o.r.e to the rescue, and while the bear was making furious attempts to reconstruct the broken staircase, n.a.z.inred went close up and put a bullet in its brain.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

THE SHIP RE-VISITED AND RE-EXPLORED.

Cheenbuk's plan was afterwards fully carried out. On the return of the party with all their wonderful news and wealth of old iron, the greatest excitement prevailed in the tribe, and the persons composing the expedition became heroes and heroines for the time being. Each member formed a centre of attraction and a subject of cross-examination to its own particular relatives and friends.

In the igloe of Aglootook was a.s.sembled, perhaps, one of the most surprised, if not one of the most credulous, of the gatherings--for the magician had a strong hold on the imagination of the greater number of his tribe, and a wonderful power of oratory. His wife in particular idolised him, which said much for his amiability, and his only sister worshipped him, which spoke volumes for her gullibility.

"Yes," he exclaimed, gazing round on the circle of his admirers; "I said from the first that this would be a wonderful trip, and that we would be sure to find _something_. And did we not find it?"

(Vigorous a.s.sent by look and voice from the audience.)

"And," he continued, with a lowered voice and solemn look, "if Cheenbuk had not turned to the _left_ when I told him, we never would have found it."

"But what was it like?" asked an elderly man with a squat-nose, whose mind was not quite clear, although he had already listened to an elaborate description.

"Like? Ho! it was like--like--"

"Like a big kayak?" remarked some one.

"No, no. Far, far bigger," said the magician, making an imbecile attempt to indicate inconceivable size by waving arms and outspread fingers; "it was--as big--as--as--"

"A whale?" suggested Squat-nose.

"Bigger--Bigger!" said Aglootook, with a lost look in his eyes. "You could stuff twenty igloes into it; and there were three great poles rising out of it as thick as--as _me_, with other poles across them, low down and high up, and walrus-lines hanging about in all directions, some as thick as my wrist, others as thin as my finger, and strange igloes inside of it--not of snow, but of wood--with all kinds of things you could think of in there; and things that--that--you could _not_ think of even if you were to try--that n.o.body ever thought of since the world began--wonderful!"

This seemed to fairly take away the breath of the audience, for they could only glare and remain dumb. For a few moments they breathed hard, then Squat-nose said in a deep whisper--

"Go on."

Aglootook did go on, and kept going on so long that his audience were forced to go off and a.s.suage the pangs of hunger which prolonged abstinence and mental excitement at last rendered unendurable. But no sooner was appet.i.te appeased than the magician and his hearers returned to the subject with redoubled energy.