The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1895-10-26
rRBUNE-sAruRDAY

What is N?" said Kotudo. for he
was beginning to be afraid.
1.-The Sickness" Kadlu answered. 1T
Is the idOg-sickness." KotukO the dog
lifted his nose and howled and howled
again. a. s,iv ,,lc .. 7lr'. e. 80.
l"I have not seen this before. What
will he do?" said Kotuko.
Kadlu shrugged one shoulder a little
and crossed the hut 4 orhis short stab
'bing harpoon. The big dog looked at
him, howled again and SUNK away
down the passage while the other dogs
drew aside right and left to give him
ample room. When he was out on the
snow he barked furiously as though on
the trail of musk OK, and barking
and leaping and frisking passed out OF
sight. This was not hydrophobia, but
simple plain madness. The cold and
the hunger and above all the dark had
turned his head; and when the terrible
dog-sicknesS once shows itself in a team
1t spreads like wild-fire. Next hunting
day another dog sickened and was
killed then and there by Kotuko as he
bit and struggled among the traces.
Then the black second dog who had
been the leader in the old days sudden
ly gave tongue on an ina ginary rein
deer track, and when they slipped him
from the pitu he flew at the throat OF
an ice-cliif. and ran away as his leader
had done, his harness on his back.
After that no one would take the dogs
out again. They needed them for
something else and the dogs knew 1t
and though they were tied down and
fed by hand their eyes We're full of
despair and fear. To make things
worse the old women began to tell
ghost-tales and to say that they had
met the spirits of the dead hunters
lost that autumn who prophesied all
sorts of horrible things.
Kotuko grieved more for the loss of
his dog than anything else, for though
an Inuit eats enormously he also knows
when to starve. But the hunger, the
darkness, the cold and the exposure
told on his strength. and he began 70
hear voices inside his head and to see
people, who were not there, out of the
tail of his eye. One night he had un-
bucSled himself after ten hours walt
Ing above blind" seal-hole and was
staggering back to the village faint and
dlzzy-he halted to lean his back
against bowlder which happened to
be supported like a rocking-stone on a
single jutting point of ice. His weight
disturbed the balance of the thing, 1t
rolled over ponderously and as Kotuko
sprang aside 10 avoid 1t slid afGer him
squealting and Kissing on the ice slope.
That was enough for Kotuko. He
had been brought up to believe that
every rock and bowlder had it's owner
tits inua) who was generally a one
eyed kind of woman think called u
tornaq, and that when n tornaq meant
to help a man she rolled after him in
side her stone house and asked him
whether he would take her for a guard
ian spirit. In summer thaws the ice
held rocks and powders roll and slip
all over the face of the land, so you can
easily see how the idea of live stones
arose) Kotuko heard the blood beating
in his ears as he had heard it aM day
and he thought 1t was the tornaq of the
stone speaking to him. Before he
reached home he was quite certain that
he had held long conversation with
her. and as all his people believed that
this was quite possible, no one contra
dicted him.
"She said to me: 4 jump down, I
jump down from my place on the
sncw,' cried Kotudo, with hollow eyes,
leaning forward In the half lighted NUT.
'1She saNd: L will be a guide She says:
I will guide you to the good seal holes.
Tomorrow 1 will go and the tornaq
will guide me-
Then Angekok, the village sorcerer,
came in and kotuko told him the tale
second time. 1t lost nothing in the
telling.
Follow the tornait Che spirit of the
stones) and they will bring us food
again." said the angekok.
Now the girl from the north had been
lying near the lamp, eating very little