Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-10-26

l.
staring stup:dly. This is not the time.
How can the foe break now?"
Follow that the girl cried. pointing to
the thing, half lim2ng. half running. dis
tractedly before them. They followed, tug
ging at the hand sleigh, while nearer and
nearer came the roaring march of the ice
AT last the fields round them cracked and
started in every direction. and the cracks
opened and snapped like the teeth Of
wolves But where the thing rested on a
mound of old and scattered ice blocks
some fifty feet high there was motion
kotuko leaped forward wildly, dragged the
girl after him, and crawled to the top CT
the mound. The talking of the ice grew
louder and louder round them, but the
mound stayed fast. and the girl looked
at him he threw his right elbow upward
and outward, making the mutt sign for
land in the shape of an island. And land
it was that the eight.legged, limping thing
had led them to-some granite-tipped, sand
beached islet of the coast, shod and
sheathed and masked with ice, so that no
man could have told it from the foe, but
at the bottom solid earth, and not shifting
drifting ice. The smashing and rebound of
the foes, as they grounded and splintered
marked the borders of it, and friendly
shoal ran out to the northward and turned
aside the rush of the heaviest ice exactly
as a plowshare turns over loan. There
was a danger, of course, that some heavily
squeezed ice field might shoot up the beach
and plane off the top of the islet bodily,
but that did not trouble Kotuko and the
girl when they made their snow house and
began to eat. and heard the ice crack and
hammer and skid along the beach. The
thing had disappeared, and Kotuko was
talking eXcitedly about his knowledge of
and power over spirits as he crouched over
the lamp. In the middle of his wild say
ings the girl began to laugh and rock her
self backward and forward.
Behind her shoulder. crawling into the
hut crawl by crawl, there We're two heads
one yellow and one black-that belonged
to two of the most sorrowful and ashamed
dogs that you ever saw. Kotuko. the dog,
was one, and the black leader was the
other. Both We're now fat, well-looking
and quite restored to their proper minds,
nary fashion When the black leader
ran off. you remember, his harness was
still on him. He must have met Kotuko
and played or fought with him, for his
shoulder loop had caught in the plated
copper wire of Kotukos collar and lad
drawn tight, so that neither dog could get
at the trace to gnaw 1t apart, but was
fastened sidelong to his neighbours neck.
The girl pushed the two shamefaced crea-
lures toward Kotuko, and. sobbing with
laughter, cried: That is Quiquern which
led us to safe ground. Look at his eight
legs and double head"
Kotuko cut them free, and they fell into
his arms. yellow and black together, try
ing to explain how they had got their
senses back again. Kotuko ran a hand
down their ribs, which were round and
well clothed. They have found food" he
said with grin. Il do not think we shall
go to Sedna so soon. My tornaq sent these.
The sickness has left them"
AS soon as they had greeted Kotuko these
two, who had been forced to sleep and eat
and hunt together for the past few months,
flew at each others threats. and there was
a beautiful battle III the snow house.
Empty dogs do not fight" Kotuko said.
''They have found the seal Let us sleep
We shall find food
When they walked there was open water
on the north beach of the island and all
the loosened ice had been driven landward.
The first sound of the surf is one of the
most delightful that the Inuit can hear for
it means that spring is on the road. Ko-
tuko and the girl took hands and smiled,
for the clear full roar of the surge among
the ice reminded them of salmon and rein
deer time and the smell of blossoming
ground willows. Even they looked the
sea began to skim over between the float
ing cakes of ice. so intense was the cold,
but on the horizon there was a vast red
glare that was the light of the sunken sun.
1t was more like hearing him yawn in his
sleep than seeing him rise, and the glare
emily lasted for an hour or two, but it
marked the turn of the year. Nothing, they
felt, could alter that.
Kotuko found the dogs fighting over a
fresh-killed seal, who was following the
fish that a gale always disturbs. He was
the first of some twenty or thirty seal that
landed on the island in the course of day.
and, till the sea froze hard, there were
hundreds of keen black heads rejoicing in
the shallow free water and floating about
with the floating ice.
1t was good to eat seal liver again, to fill
the lamps recklessly with blubber and
watch the flame blaze three feet in the air,
but as soon the new ice formed Ko-
tUko and the girl loaded the hand sleigh
and made the two dogs pull as they had
never pulled before in their lives, for they
feared what might have happened in their
village The weather, of course was as
nil h-1tj iS tn
sleigh loaded with good food than to hunt
starving. They left five and twenty seal
carcasses buried in the ice of the beach all
ready for use and hurried back to their
people. The dogs showed them the way as
soon Kotuko told them what was ex-
pected, and. though there was no sign of a
landmark, in two days they were giving
tongue outside Radius house Only three
dogs answered them; the others had been
eaten; and the houses We're all dark But
when Kotuko shouted: "Ojo!' (boiled meat
weak voices answered, and when he called
the call of the village name by name,
very distinctly. there We're no gaps in 1t.
An hour later the lamps blaZed in Kadlu's
house, snow water was melting, the pots
we're beginning to simmer and the snow
was drifting from the roof as Amorau made
ready meal for all the village, and the
hoy baby in the hood chewed at a strip Of
rich nutty blubber and the hunters slowly
and methodically filled themselves to the
very brim with seal meat. Kotuko and the
tween them, and whenever their names
came in they cooked an ear apiece and
looked most thoroughly ashamed of them
selves. A dog who has once gone mad, the
mutt say, is safe against all attacks.
so the tornaq did not forget u.s. said
Kotuko. THE storm blew; the ice broke
and the seal swan in behind the fish that
were frightened by the storm. Now the
new seal holes are not two days distant.
Let tho good hunters go tomorrow and
bring back the seal 1 have spared-twenty
five seal buried in the ice. When We have
eaten those we will all follow the seal on
the. foe"
What do you dog" said the angekok, the
sorcerer, in the same sort of voice as he
used tv Kadlu, the richest Of the Tununir-
miut.
(adlu looked at the girl from the north
and said. quietly: I'VE build house" He
pointed to the northwest side Of KadIus
house. for that is the side on which the
married Son or daughter always lives.