The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1895-10-28
CHAPTER III.

An Inuit does not think of these
chances till he is forced TO. Kadlu, Kot-
ko, Amoraq and the boy baby, who kicked
about in Amoraq's fur hood and cheweu
pieces OF blubber all day, were as happy
together as any family in the world. They
came D very gentle rsce-an Inuit sell
dom loses his temper and almost never
strikes child who did not know exactly
what telling lie meant, sti less how to
steal. They were content to drag their
living out of the heart of the bitter.
hopeless cold; to smile oily smiles and
tell queer ghost and fairy tales of even
ings; and eat till they could eat no more,
and sing the endless womau's song:
Gamma ava, ava amnah ah! ah!' through
the long, lamp-lighted days as they
mended their clothes and their hunting
gear.
But one terrible winter everything be-
trayed them. The Tununirmiut returned
from the yearly salmon fishing and made
their houses on the early ice to the north
OF Bellot's island ready to go after the
seal as soon as the sea froze. But IL was
an early and savage autumn. All through
September there were continuous gales
that broke up the smooth seal ice where
II was only four or five feet thi,k and
forced IL inland and piled a great barrier
some thirty miles broad OF Jumped and
ragged and needlly ice over which il
was impossible 10 draw the sleighs. The
edge of the foe of which the seal were
used to fish in winter lay perhaps twenty
miles beyond this barrier and and out OF
reaeh OF the Tununirmiut. Even so, they
might have managed to scrape through
the winter on their stock OF frozen
salmon and stored biubber and what the
traps gave them, but in Decem Der enc OF
their hunters csme across tupik, a skin
tent, OF three women and a girl nearly
dead whose men had come down from
the far north and been crushed in their
kajaks (their little skin hunting boats)
while they were out after the long horned
nsrwhal. kadlu, of course, could only
distribute the women among the huts OF
the winter village, for no mutt would
dare refuse meal TO a stranger. lie
never knows when his time may come
TO beg. Amorsq took the girl, who
was about IL, into her own house as
sort OF servant. From the cut of her
shsrp-pointcd hood and the long diamond
pattern OF her white deer skins leggings,
they supposed she came from Ellesmere
land. She had never seen tin cooking
pots or wooden-sh I'd sleighs before; but
Kotuko, the hoy, and Kotuko, the dog,
were rather found of her.
Then ell the foxes went south: and
even the wolverine. the growing, blunt
headed little thief OF the snow, did not
take the trouble to follow the line OF
smpty traps that Kotuko set. The tribe
lost q couple OF their best hunters, who
were badly crippled I'm a fight with
musk or, and that threw more work on
the others. Kotuko went out. day after
day. with a light hunting sleigh ana
six or seven OF the strongest dogs, look
ing till his eyes ached for some patch
OF clear ice where seal might perhaps
have scratched a breathing hole. kotuko,
the dog, ranged far and wide, and ip the
dead stiffness OF the Ice fields Kotuko,
the bow, could hear his hali-chnked
whine OF eScitcuert r. Owe n scr hoe
three miles away hs plainly a. thougn he
were al his elbow. When the dog found
. hole the boy would build himseifs lit
tie low snow wall TO keep OF the worst OF