Evening star., 1938-08-14

~ HIS is the story of a stranger on Cape
Desolation, where devils are much more
1 commonplace. Cape Desolation is very
far to northward, and its tall headland looks
bleakly out over the Arctic Ocean - though
only for three or four months is that ocean
really water. The rest of the time it is ice;
pack ice; hummock ice; tortured, fssured,
heaped-up chaos beneath cold polar stars.
Consequently, there should not ever be any
strangers at Cape Desolation, and certainly
they should not be huge and blond and flame
scorched nor dumped down by visible
demons. Which this stranger was.
Kopik, headman, and other Eskimos from
the village on the beach below the cape found
the stranger in the snow, up on the barren
highland back of the cape itself His clothes
were half burned off him, the lenses of his
goggles were shattered, and the closed lids
of his eyes were monstrous blisters. His hands
were burned too, but his parachute was prac-
tically intact. And since nobody had any
other idea of how he could have gotten there,
they assumed that he had been scorched in
battle with the noise-devil of the night before.
Therefore, since he was still breathing. they
carried him admiringly down to the village.
This was in November, when day was
brief twilight only, and the water beyond
Cape Desolation was tumbled mass of ice
pans and hummocks. The village was in win
ter quarters, waiting for the time of many
winds to end.
On the next day after they had heard the
noise-devil in the sky kopik and four of the
braver hunters had toiled up to the highlands
behind the cape and secuted for the possible
corpse of the demon. But instead of finding
anything supernatural, they had come upon
the man; scorched, unconscious, and wholly
unexpected. They more or less credited him
with killing the noise-devil, and they took
him home and waited for him to wake up and
tell them about it.
That was in November. BY December they
had lost all hope of hearing any details of
the battle. There had been doubt about the
strangers recovery for week or two, but
then he took turn for the better, and pres
emily he began to talk. But the words were
incomprehensible. He remained incompre-
hensible.
As his strength grew. he seemed to develop
two Overwhelming - and hopeless - desires.
The first was to communicate with the folk
about him. The second was one which kopik
and his fellows did not at first understand.
They did not realize that the stranger felt he
was an object of charity, and resented it. On
Cape Desolation there is no charity. There is
only friendhness.
As soon as he was conscious, the stranger
tried to feed himself. AS soon as he could sit
up, he refused aid When he could walk, he
tried instantly to walk alone. But he was
tall man and his head bumped against the
ceiling cloth of Kopiks hut. The ceiling cloth
is skin, of course, and its purpose is to catch
such drippings as the seal oil lamp melts from
the roof. In consequence, the strangers
awkwardness spilled gallons of icy water on
the floor. He drew himself up defiantly. look
ing the while Inundated, for he could not
offer to pay for the damage.
To pay for anything was patiently impossi-
bic to the stranger. He could not open his
eyes. In healing his burned eyeiids had been
united by the new grown flesh.
Kopik and the other 1nuit realized this
perfectly, and they considered him very un-