KAK,
THE COPPER ESKIMO
[Illustration]
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS
ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO
[Illustration: THE BOYS STARED INTO HIS WHITE FACE
--(See Page 97)]
KAK,
THE COPPER ESKIMO
BY
VILHJALMUR STEFANSSON
AND
VIOLET IRWIN
_Illustrated by George Richards_
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1924
_All rights reserved_
COPYRIGHT, 1924,
BY VILHJALMUR STEFANSSON AND VIOLET IRWIN
Set up and printed.
Published August, 1924
_Printed in the United States of America by_
THE FERRIS PRINTING COMPANY, NEW YORK.
To
CONRAD DE WAAL, JR.
Contents
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE HOUSE THAT KAK BUILT 3
II. KAK’S HUNTING 35
III. STRANGERS 56
IV. BEARS 85
V. QUEER TALES 106
VI. SUMMER TRAVELS 125
VII. TWENTY-FOUR HOURS OF SUNLIGHT 147
VIII. INDIANS 178
IX. MISSING 204
X. HOMEWARD BOUND 231
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
THE BOYS STARED INTO HIS WHITE FACE Frontispiece
IT WAS TOUGH WORK FOR A LAD 21
HE DASHED DOWN THE SPEAR WITH ALL HIS FORCE Facing page 43
TAPTUNA FLUNG HIMSELF INTO DEFENSIVE POSITION 61
“I’M THE KING OF THE CASTLE!” 89
THE HUNTER COULD NOT BELIEVE HIS EYES Facing page 119
HE COULD BARELY SQUEEZE INTO HIS FATHER’S BOAT 137
HE STOOD WITH CHATTERING TEETH AND DRIPPING LOCKS 155
“GOOD GRACIOUS! DON’T KILL ME,” CRIED A FAMILIAR VOICE Facing Page 178
AN OLD SLANT-EYE DRESSED UP IN HIS ANCIENT COSTUME TO SHOW OFF 201
THE WHOLE PLACE SEEMED TO BE A MOVING RIVER OF DEER 221
KAK RUSHED FORWARD WITH HIS KNIFE READY 249
KAK, THE COPPER ESKIMO
KAK, THE COPPER ESKIMO
CHAPTER I
_The House That Kak Built_
Kak was an Eskimo boy who lived in Victoria Island in Canada. He
belonged to the Copper Eskimos. This name does not refer in any way to
their complexions as “red Indians,” but is given because the people
make all their knives and implements out of copper. As far as looks
went Kak was quite ordinary--a short, muscular fellow, with brown hair
and gray eyes, and a skin about the color of white boys’ skins at the
end of the summer holidays when they are tanned. But his clothing was
very different from ours, being made entirely of fur.
Kak was not counted a poor boy though he possessed very little. Eskimos
do not go in for possessions. They are a migratory people, always
moving from place to place, and so learn to get on with a small amount
of gear, as we do in camp life. Kak was contented and had no cares. He
never had to make up his mind whether to play with his meccano, or his
electric train, or his radio. He was entirely ignorant of such things
and yet not a bit dull. He found plenty of sport up there in the Arctic
to keep him merry and bright. First of all his parents owned so little
they were never worried about taking care of things; with nothing to do
but kill a few animals for food and fuel and clothes they were as gay
as children, always laughing and joking from morning to night. The boy
could scarcely remember a day that was not full of fun and laughter.
In the winter they lived in a snow house. You would think it must be
cold inside a snow house but it was not, because their large lamp
burned in the house all the time and kept it cozy and warm; so warm
that Kak usually skinned off his coat and shirt as soon as he came
indoors. He did not come in often during the daylight, for he enjoyed
the cold outside, and he was a singularly independent lad, doing just
what he pleased. That is the Eskimo boys’ compensation for not having
toys: they are allowed to do as they like. In the morning Kak did not
get up till he wanted to. He did not have to wash his neck, nor mind
his table manners, nor go to school; and he was never, never sent to
bed. You see as there was only one room in the whole house the family
had to be jolly all together all the time. In the evenings when the
grown-up folks sat around telling stories and singing songs, Kak stayed
with them, and so did his little sister, Noashak. They sat up as long
as they possibly could, and when the sandman came and shut their eyes
in spite of them, they toppled over asleep wherever they were, and
somebody tucked them in between fur blankets.
Kak, whose name means the top of anything or summit, as of a mountain,
was twelve years old when he built his first house by himself. It was a
horrible experience which he will remember all his life.
The way to build a snow house is to cut big blocks the shape of
dominoes out of a hard snowdrift and set them up on edge in a circle,
leaning them inward a little toward the center. You must carve the
first block diagonally in half so that its back makes a hill for the
second row to run up on; and when you have started properly you can
keep on building one row above the next, going up and around like the
red and white on a barber pole, and always leaning them inward till
they just naturally meet at the top, where you sometimes poke a very
small hole for ventilation. The finished dwelling is a beehive of
snow--awfully cold snow which has frozen together safe and solid in a
surprisingly short time. Next you dig a long tunnel through the drift
and a hole in the floor of the house, and that is the way you go in and
out, like rabbits and foxes burrowing to their dens.
A family will occupy this sort of house only about three weeks; for the
heat inside melts the snow walls, and as they cool off somewhat every
night they turn gradually to ice, and the house grows colder and colder
(for ice is much colder than snow) till the owners decide to have a
new one. A few houses are magnificent with windows, ice windows, which
being troublesome to make are carefully removed and placed in the next
house when it is built. Even if the Eskimos continue to live in the
same place they will build a new house every few weeks. When they are
too careless to bother about windows, plenty of light filters through
the white walls; and while the house is occupied the lamp is always
burning brightly inside.
Kak did not live very long in his first house. He spent only one night
under its low dome, and felt very glad indeed that he did not have to
stay there a second night. The way of it was this:
Taptuna, Kak’s father, was going seal hunting with a neighbor. These
neighbors, who were the only other people living within ten miles,
had used up all their supply of blubber. Now blubber is the fat part
of seals out of which drips the oil for the lamps, and as the lamp is
the Copper Eskimo’s only means of warming his house and cooking his
food, this was a serious situation. In his need the neighbor came to
borrow from Taptuna, and begged him to help hunt seals. Taptuna readily
agreed, for he was a kind-hearted man; so they started out early. But
seal hunting through the ice is slow and difficult, and the first day
they failed to get any. The next morning, however, while crossing a
sandspit, they discovered the remains of a dead whale, half buried in
drifted snow and earth. It must have been two years old at least, and
the bears and other animals had eaten most of the fat; but Taptuna
and Hitkoak hoped by cutting off parts of the outside flesh, which
would make good enough dog feed, to strike an ample supply of blubber
underneath. So they abandoned the hunt and fell on this free gift,
eager to get all they could and that at once, for sled tracks in the
snow showed other Eskimos knew about the prize.
They worked all day, not stopping to drag the meat home but piling it
up chunk on chunk, only to find by evening that some crafty bear had
clawed under and scooped away the very store of blubber on which they
were counting. It meant they must hunt next morning and _must_ catch a
seal without fail.
Both men hated to waste the heaps of frozen whale flesh which had given
them all the work they wanted to hack off with soft copper knives.
Copper will not make nearly so sharp a knife as steel. Taptuna and
Hitkoak, sweating after their labor, wished they had stopped about
noon, harnessed the dogs, and sledded home some of this good food. It
was too late now, and to-morrow they must hunt. Oil for the lamps was
more necessary than dog feed. Until they killed a seal the neighbor
would go on borrowing blubber from Taptuna, and it was already past
mid-winter so he had not much left for his own family.
It looked as if their effort over the whale was going to be a dead
loss; but the older, wiser man promised to sleep on the question, and
next morning, when Guninana was boiling their breakfast, he said:
“Kak, my boy, while I am watching the seal hole to-day, you may harness
both dogs to the sled and go to the carcass over yonder and bring
home some loads of whale flesh. The young bear I killed will not last
forever, eh? And it is well to lay in food while the laying’s good.”
Had Kak been an English or American school-boy he would doubtless have
mumbled, “All right, dad,” and gone on eating his breakfast without
giving any visible sign of his thrill. But an Eskimo never learns to
disguise his feelings, so Kak grinned all over his round face and cried:
“Bully! Bully! Me for it! Do you hear, Noashak? I’m to drive the team.”
And he began to dance and jump about and was so delighted and excited
he quickly pulled on his fur shirt and his topcoat of reindeer skin,
and dashed out to pat young Sapsuk, his favorite dog, and tell him what
a fine day they were going to have together.
His mother gazed fondly on her son’s brown head as it disappeared
through the hole in the floor.
“Is it not too much for him?” she asked doubtfully. “Will the boy be
able to find his way?”
“Yes, he will be able to do it just as well as I. Kak is a smart lad
and has plenty of sense; besides, they have only to follow the trail we
broke last night.”
So Guninana, who thought her tall, active husband the best judge of
everything in the world, beamed on him and said no more.
Kak was keeping up a fine game with the dogs. He was so overjoyed he
could hardly stand still a minute. This seemed the greatest event in
his whole life; not only had his father trusted him with a man-sized
job for the first time, but it was the very job he loved best. Kak
would rather harness both dogs to the light sled and drive like the
wind than do anything else in the whole Arctic. He was so proud of his
task and so anxious to do it all by himself, that he waited and put off
and dilly-dallied about starting till his father had gone. Of course
Taptuna observed this, but he understood. He thought: “The boy will be
tired anyway when he has fetched two loads, so there is plenty of time.”
“Get busy, my lad. Kill meat while the light lasts,” he called for
farewell, and waving his harpoon toward the already crimsoned horizon,
trudged off leading the neighbor’s dog.
Kak loitered yet a little gloating over the prospect of his ride. He
wanted golden shafts of light bathing yesterday’s trail which showed
now plain as an open lead. He wanted to be able to tear along. One fast
dash to the carcass would more than make up for delay, so he fiddled
with the dogs.
“Have you not gone yet?” asked Guninana, surprised, when she came out
to examine her bearskin stretched on a frame to dry.
“Just as soon as the sun rises, mother, I’ll be away like an arrow.
See, I am harnessing now,” Kak answered.
He was, truly. He had begun to hitch each dog to its trace at the first
sound of her voice, and kept himself very busy about it.
Like all real boys, Kak did not mind a lot of extra trouble in
making play out of his work. It was fun to pretend he must go on a
long journey alone; so he went to the tunnel, which also serves as
storehouse, and taking his father’s big snow knife, used to carve out
the blocks when building, he bound it securely on to one side of the
sled.
“Whatever is that for?” asked Noashak, who was playing with the
neighbor girls, running up on top of the house and sliding down its
smooth curve. “What is the snow knife for?”
“In case I decide to stop overnight,” said Kak, swelling with
importance.
“Oh, pooh! Stay all night! Why you are only going to the whale carcass.
It is no distance at all! Daddy said you could easily make two trips in
daylight.”
Kak flushed. “I shall make double that--I shall make four!” he
answered, hotly. “Watch me!”
As he spoke the sun’s rim peeped above the long flat beach, streaking
the blue-gray world with vivid gold. As if at a signal Kak let go of
his team and sprang for the sled with a “Yi--yi--yip!” Instantly both
dogs bounded forward. They were off!
The boy shouted, waved his arms, knocked his heels on the sleigh and
beat his gloved hands together with resounding thwacks for the sheer
pleasure of making a noise, as the two fresh pups raced their shadows
over the crusted snow.
It was a wonderful ride to the whale. But once there Kak had to do some
hard work handling the big, rough pieces of frozen flesh and piling
them on the sled. Perhaps it was not a very large load when he called
time and headed the dogs home; still he felt satisfied with himself,
and was quite ready to put on airs; and the girls, who had been
mightily impressed by his glorious start, rushed to meet his return all
clamoring:
“A ride! A ride!”
“No, it is too heavy! We have much meat,” Kak swaggered.
“But I want a ride! I will ride!” whined Noashak, who was a very
selfish, naughty little girl, and deserved to be spanked. Now she made
her brother angry.
“Hold off there! Get off, I say! The dogs are too tired. They’re
panting. Look at Pikalu, how he puffs and blows.”
“That’s your fault! You have run him too fast. I will tell father on
you.”
Noashak was not a bit nice in a temper. She climbed up the back of the
load, and Kak cried to the other girls to pull her down, but they only
scampered away laughing; then he had to stop and go around and pull her
off himself. She kicked and slapped him and climbed up immediately they
started. Kak came and pulled her down again and again; but in the end
he had to let her ride because she screamed and yelled so. This sort of
welcome, repeated, delayed him a whole lot, yet he had brought his two
loads when the far edge of the ice floe dented the sun’s gleaming disk;
and after that he brought one more. It was good work for a boy. He felt
proud of himself and showed it, crowing over the girls.
“You guessed two, eh? And I have got in three!”
“Three! Bah! Three’s nothing! You said you could bring four,” Noashak
jeered.
Now Kak did not like this at all. His male nature wanted to be admired
and praised, even if he had accomplished less than he had boasted. Her
unkindness made him feel like backing up his good opinion of himself.
“Well, anyway, three’s a lot. It’s more than dad expected me to bring.”
“Four!” bawled his tormentor.
And “Four! Four!” sang the neighbor girls in chorus, going over
holus-bolus to his natural enemy.
“You promised to bring four and you can’t do it. You’re afraid! You’re
afraid to go back again now!” adding an Eskimo taunt equivalent to
“Cowardy, cowardy custard!”
They flouted him meanly, sticking out their tongues, stretching their
mouths with fingers in their cheeks, making faces at him over the
housetop.
“Bears!” suddenly yelled Noashak.
That was too much. It hit home.
“I am not afraid!” Kak cried, outraged. “Who says I can’t do it?”
He shot a half fearful glance at the sky. Daylight was slowly fading
but it would last for a short while, and his dogs looked jolly enough;
they had enjoyed more rest than running during their day’s work. If he
made one grand dash back to the carcass, and only stayed to load ever
so little meat, it would count the same.
“I will do it,” the boy answered boldly. “Who dares to say I cannot
bring four loads? Hi there, Sapsuk! Hok, hok, Pikalu!”
He swung his team around in a wide circle and dashed away without
waiting for comment from the astonished girls.
“Kak!” cried his mother from the tunnel entrance. “Kak! It is too late!”
But a breeze had sprung up blowing out of the west and whisked her
voice in the opposite direction. Anxiously she watched boy, dogs, and
sled dwindle to a small, black speck.
“You will come inside now, child,” Guninana commanded, ill pleased; and
Noashak, humbled by her brother’s rash magnificence, and fearful of her
own part in it, obeyed. The neighbor girls ran home quickly. All at
once the flat snow landscape around the two snow houses lay empty and
deserted.
By the time Kak reached the whale a rack of clouds had blown up
hastening the night. The earth and sky turned all one dark, cold
gray. Those other Eskimos, whom he had found cutting flesh earlier,
were gone; and wolves howled distantly gathering for a feed. At their
dismal cries Kak suddenly felt afraid. His hands shook so that he could
hardly lift the meat. He stopped and peered over his shoulder, trying
to see with his bright eyes through the thickening night. He did not
care a jot for wolves, they are cowards and will fly from a shout; but
Noashak’s last mean taunt burned in his mind. If a great white bear
were to prowl out of the gloom he knew it would go hard with him and
the dogs. His hands stiffened from fright and his skin grew clammy.
Another long, lone howl arose inland; it seemed to run right up his
spine. Kak fancied he saw a huge yellow blur moving beyond the carcass
and at that his hair felt as if it were rising under his fur hood. The
night turned blacker, the wind sighed icily, and fear overflowed him
like water. He dropped a ten-pound chunk of meat from his petrified
fingers and sprang for the sleigh calling his dogs:
“Hok! Hok!”
They were wild to be off home. At a single bound the team broke and
ran, with Kak racing after them, yelling at the top of his voice to
keep his courage up: “Yip--yip--yi!”--and mumbling charms his mother
had taught him to scare off evil.
The dogs raced faster and faster; the howling of the wolves excited
them; the nearly empty sleigh flashed over the hard snow; and a
freshening wind behind drove the whole party on. Kak, thrilled by this
rush of freedom, soon forgot all his fears. He urged the team with
whistle and shout, yipping and yiing like a maniac or a real boy, till
suddenly the sled gave a lurch, turned upside down, and sent him flying
heels over head across its runners. The dogs, jerked back on their
traces, stopped abruptly, and Kak, who was buried neck and arms in a
drift before you could say Jack Robinson, picked himself up, dug the
snow out of his eyes and mouth, and dusted off his furry clothes.
“Ouch! Bhoo! I say, old Sapsuk, where are we?”
As if he perfectly understood the question Sapsuk sat down on his bushy
tail with his long, red tongue hanging out and his breath coming in
heavy pants, while Kak looked about him. They ought to have been very
nearly home; but the crazy driver could see no sign of the two little
white domes that were his father’s house and Hitkoak’s. At first he
failed to understand. The houses dropping out of sight seemed very odd
indeed. Of course dogs and people move about and get lost if you take
your eyes off them for five minutes; but a boy hardly expects his home
to behave in that ridiculous way. And yet, peering in every direction
as far as he could, which was not far on account of the darkness, Kak
did not see a sign of a house. Then gradually he began to know it was
not home that was lost, but himself and the dogs. His heart sank down,
down, down like a stone cast into the sea. He remembered how in his
panic to get away, followed by the reckless splendor of the run, he had
forgotten all about direction, had left it to the frantic team to keep
the trail. Examining the cause of their accident he felt sure there
could not be any ice as rough as this lying between the whale carcass
on the wind-swept sandspit and Taptuna’s home on the bay. They must
have gone far past the houses; or maybe dashed off on a wrong line
altogether.
Goodness, how the wind blew, now he tried to stand against it! The
thought of returning into its teeth, slowly, painfully, following their
own track was enough to make a hero weep. Perhaps they would have to
go all the way back to the old whale before they picked up the true
course. But Kak did not cry. He laughed. You see he had run right away
from his fear: he really did not feel so upset as he should have done
over being lost in the middle of an Arctic night. Retracing their steps
seemed a perfectly simple and safe way of getting himself out of this
scrape--but he counted without the wind. Racing before it none of the
living things had guessed its strength. Now it beat upon them like a
blizzard. Overhead, the sky hung dark with clouds, and close to the
ground, where our boy had to bend to see their trail, the demon air
was whirling snow in eddies, gathering up particles as sharp as sand
to fling into his eyes. The dogs suffered also; but worse than these
discomforts was the storm’s effect. Tearing over the open ground,
grabbing a handful of snow here and scattering it there, that mighty
blast soon hid their track. The farther back they went the less and
less distinct it grew, till on the top of a small ice hill they lost it
altogether. Poor Kak hunted and hunted, coaxing his team, straining his
eyes for a glimpse of the house or the path.
When he had done every possible thing and quite made up his mind
to abandon home, the boy felt relieved. Right down in the bottom
of his heart he was not a bit keen about returning to that haunted
neighborhood of dead meat. Wolves would have gathered there in numbers
by now. Kak shivered. Spending a night in the open at a temperature
of thirty-six below zero was not exactly inviting; still, he felt the
whale carcass for five minutes would have been far worse. He sat down
to think, hunched against the wind. A sealskin had been spread over
the rungs forming the top of the sleigh, and when he righted his gear
after the upset one piece of meat was found lying under it; the rest
had gone spinning across the ice into darkness and he did not bother
to hunt them up. Now this ridiculously small load reproached him, for
the dogs would be hungry. He remembered dropping that dandy, ten-pound
chunk in his crazy fear, and his face burned with shame over such
cowardice. What a blessing the girls would never know! Crouching there
he recollected wistfully his wrangling with Noashak that day, clear
back to its little beginning. Ah! The snow knife!
With a rousing shout Kak leaped to his feet, and cut a caper before
turning to unlash the thong holding his bully, big knife.
“In case I stay all night,” he had bravely boasted; so now he must act
up to the boast.
“Right here I will build me a house!” the boy chuckled; and walked
over the ground, leading the dogs, till he found a drift. To his soft,
padding shoes this bank felt solid enough, but he did not dare to build
till he had fallen on his knees and tested it by plunging his knife in
here and there to make sure the snow was evenly packed.
“Seems all firm,” Kak decided, battling to brush the icy particles out
of his eyes. With his face to the wind he cut his first blocks and
built them up in a circle around where they were cut; each chunk as it
came out lowered the floor a little and this helped considerably. But
it was tough work for a lad; his short arms could only lift and place
small pieces, which meant using ever so many more of them; still, he
stuck to it like a man and as he worked the job grew easier for the
rising walls of the house soon offered shelter from the cutting wind.
[Illustration: IT WAS TOUGH WORK FOR A LAD.]
By and by he felt ravenous and called “time” for supper. The dogs,
curled up on the snow with their faces buried under their paws, jumped
from their sleep and answered, “Here,” with tail-wagging expectation.
Kak tossed them morsels between bites. He enjoyed his meal of
two-year-old whale meat, its gamy flavor was as delicious to his taste
as pheasants seem to ours. The boy grew cheerier at every mouthful,
and laughed aloud when his favorite snapped fierce jaws on a good bit
thrown for Pikalu. Finally he sawed the chunk in halves and let the
animals finish it while he finished his work.
Kak’s was a very small house. It had no tunnel at all and no proper
door--but why have a door when one does not want to go in and out? Kak
only wanted to get in. During the building he had been compelled to
cut a hole in the lower part of his wall so he could crawl out and get
more blocks; for there had not been quite enough material in the floor
to finish the roof. When all was ready he scrambled through this small
hole, pulled the dogs after him, and then closed it with a block he had
cut for that purpose. From the outside the architect had not been able
to see all the chinks in his house, but it was so dark inside every
least little one showed clearly against the night; so he filled his
mitts with soft snow and plastered them up. Then he spread the sealskin
from the sleigh over his floor. Now all was shipshape. But without door
or window they had no air. The boy made a little round hole in the
middle of his door-block, and another in the top of the roof, as he had
seen his father do, and at last, feeling utterly safe and tremendously
proud of himself, cuddled down with a large woolly beast on either
side of him, and was soon fast asleep.
A long drawn thunder, followed by a tumbling, rending, grinding
vibration roused Kak from his dreams. He felt cold. It was apt to be
chilly at night if the lamp went out, so the boy sought his father’s
hefty form to snuggle into. Eskimo families all sleep in a row in one
big bed, and Kak’s place was beside his daddy. Drowsily he threw a hand
across to feel for him and rapped Pikalu on the nose. The dog growled.
Then his master woke up enough to find himself in his clothes and
remembered.
Another rumble, more prolonged, more terrifying than the last, shook
the whole house. Kak rose on his elbow and listened. He could hear the
wind whistling around their shelter, while the smashing and bumping
never ceased. You would have come out all over in goose flesh and
popped your head under the blanket; but Kak only turned on his other
side and lay up closer to Sapsuk. The row outside was no more alarming
to him than taxicabs beneath your window, or a trolley car clanging
across rails, for well he knew its meaning; a gale had driven the
sea ice in on the landfast ice, and the two floes were grinding and
groaning and churning against each other, with bolts of thunder when
sometimes a great mass as big as a house toppled over another great
mass, and vibration like an earthquake as it slid off again. This sort
of show was fun to watch in the daytime, and nothing to be afraid of
at night when you were safely camped in your own house which you had
constructed all by yourself on the solid, landfast ice.
But while the lost boy slept so peacefully his father and mother and
sister were very unhappy and anxious.
The seal hunters had returned at dark, each dragging a fine, fat seal
and congratulating the other on a good day’s work. They parted with
jests and laughter outside Hitkoak’s place; and Taptuna strode on
cheerily to his own home. But before he had got within calling distance
he knew something was wrong; even in twilight he missed his sled’s
black bulk; and where were his dogs? They should have come bounding to
welcome him, wagging their tails, asking for friendly pats, jumping up,
frisking, romping. Instead of being the center of this lively scene the
little white roof of his house humped itself out of the white ground
like a solitary tomb.
Taptuna wasted no time on the seal. Letting it lie he strode inside,
calling for Kak. Guninana raised an anxious face from over her cooking
pot and told the worst:
“He has gone! That wild boy dashed off for one last load of whale meat
after the sky had turned gray. I called, ‘It is too late!’ but the dogs
were already galloping, the wind blowing--Kak did not hear.”
“How long?” demanded Taptuna.
“Long enough to be back now,” answered the mother shaking her head.
Then she spoke her haunting fear: “There are bears all around and he
carried neither spear nor bow.”
Guninana was horribly afraid of bears, more afraid of a polar bear than
of anything else in the whole world.
Without a word Taptuna turned to go.
“You will eat first?” his wife pleaded, for she knew he had taken only
a piece of dried meat since morning.
“I will have a drink of broth.”
She hurried to give this to him in a horn cup, saying: “It would be
better to eat.”
“The wind rises,” Taptuna replied, and there was no need for him to say
more. Pulling up his hood he disappeared through the low door.
Guninana silently stirred the stew, and Noashak, completely subdued by
creeping fear, stole close to her mother’s side.
Taptuna crossed to Hitkoak’s. He who had so freely given help with the
hunting, could now as freely ask for help. Very soon the neighbor’s
dogs were harnessed, and both men set out for the whale carcass. The
wind was rising. It howled louder and louder, and drove straight into
their faces, making the journey as harsh for them as for Kak and his
team, who were plodding back in the same direction, a mile or so out on
the ice, but hidden by darkness and whirling snow.
At last Taptuna saw the whale bulking black on the sandspit. They
hurried on, watching thin shadows slink from its side at the noise of
their approach. It was evident wolves had been there in numbers, all
the ground around was trampled with their footsteps freshly sunk in the
freshly driven snow, but there were no sled tracks at all; therefore
the search party knew Kak must have started away before the wind began
to blow so fiercely. He must have lost the trail; he might be anywhere.
It would be madness to try to follow him through the stormy night.
“We will need luck to get safely home ourselves,” Hitkoak said,
peering at their own drifted tracks; and Taptuna reluctantly agreed.
Nothing could be done till to-morrow; so they turned their backs to
the gale and were blown along watching every inch of the way; and
shouting--shouting--for the boy might be wandering close at hand.
Sadly Kak’s father helped tether the dogs, and struggled to his own
house. He knew Guninana would have the lamp burning and her meat pot
on to boil; but he little expected the cheery manner with which she
greeted him. Her face was so many degrees less worried it seemed almost
smiling, and her eager words bubbled up like the fragrant bear stew.
“He has the snow knife.”
“What do you say?”
“It is all right! Everything’s all right! Kak took with him your big
knife.”
As Taptuna pulled off his great fur coats and hung his mittens near
the lamp to dry, Guninana excitedly told of their boy’s boast about
staying all night. Her telling made the story sound more purposeful
than Kak’s careless morning play, for Noashak had told it so. The child
was weeping for her brother lost in the driving snow, and as she wept
and feared, fear led her to remorse. She felt oh, so sorry about their
quarrel, and remembering its cause, suddenly the idle threat turned
to a promise. Now that Kak did not come back she knew he had really
intended staying away. She was awed by his independence; her mother
provoked and delighted.
“He is a rash one, is our lad!” chuckled the little woman, slapping
her plump hands on her plump knees.
“Kak has sense,” his father grunted between mouthfuls. “Since he
carries the snow knife we needn’t worry about their being cold
to-night. Let us go to bed quickly--I am as tired as any man on this
earth; and with the first streak of light we must be after him again.”
So the remains of the family went to bed, all three in a row; and
Kak’s father was soon snoring; but his mother lay awake a long time,
wondering if her little boy really could manage to build a house all
by himself. Taptuna said he could--and Taptuna was generally right.
Presently she sighed and fell asleep, and the shrieking ice pack
troubled her no more than it did Kak, for Guninana was only afraid of
bears.
Kak slept late. Excitement and wild driving tire a boy more than
he reckons, and he had done a full day’s work with the meat before
building his house. So he was not a bit ashamed when he opened one eye
to find strong yellow sunshine striking through the dome. He snuggled
down again only half conscious of having been disturbed by unexpected
noise. It sounded once more--knock, knock, knock. But the boy was
dreadfully sleepy.
Knock--knock--knock.
This could not be the grinding of ice nor the sob of wind, nor yet a
dog’s deep breathing. He opened both eyes and lay staring up. A band of
darkness danced across the roof. Something was outside--something large
and active! The boy gazed dumbly. What kind of an awful critter could
it be? His fancy leaped to bears. He lay petrified with fright.
A soft thud followed. The shadow vanished, sunk to a spot. Kak nerved
himself to reach for the snow knife, his only weapon. Then a prolonged
squeak on a high note riveted his glance on the dark blot. He saw one
sharp claw thrust through. It moved rapidly. Having been shocked awake,
the boy was still too dazed to comprehend. He thought some ravenous,
strange animal must be breaking in on them. He was too scared to
scream, to move, even to rouse the dogs, till a lump of snow falling
from the roof saved him the trouble. Like a flash Sapsuk sprang to
fight Pikalu for the honor of meeting this attack. Panic ensued--a
regular good mix-up. The pups barked and scrambled and trod on each
other, and nipped and yelped and walked over poor Kak who, crowded
under the edge of his house anxiously eyeing the shadow, wished his
defenders had been ten times more savage.
It is a wonder they did not knock the place down; for until a snow
house has had a fire in it to melt the inner surface, which quickly
freezes from the cold outside, and so forms a hard ice dome, it is a
very fragile sort of shelter.
All at once the boy woke up and understood. He laughed at himself,
trying to curb the dogs between chuckles. A second later the door-block
fell in with a shower of soft snow, and his father’s head appeared.
Taptuna joined in the laugh. “Stole a march on you, Kak! Ha-ha! This is
a fine house you have built, with no door. Lucky I happened along to
dig you out--eh? Down, Sapsuk!”
“Dad!”
Kak leaped up, cracked his head against Pikalu’s, and fell on his knees
with a howl, rubbing the place. Tears sprang to his eyes. Now that they
were safely found, all last night’s terrors, which he had so bravely
put aside, rushed over him. He was glad of an excuse to cry. Taptuna,
still in the doorway, jollied his son and pretended not to notice the
tears.
“You sleep so late here you must sleep well--no worries at all? But
it was a grand scare you gave us yonder; going off to set up an
establishment for yourself without a word of warning. A fine place like
this, too!”
“I didn’t go off to set up anything,” mumbled Kak. “We got lost.”
“Lost! What? On that plain trail you had traveled all day?”
“I--I thought there was a bear--and we whirled along.”
“Ah, you take after your mother.”
Kak blushed to the edge of his hood, and who can say how much farther?
For Guninana’s abject fear of polar bears was a standing joke in the
family.
“Help me out! Help me out!” he cried, so as to change the subject.
The dogs began to make a worse row than ever, for the inrushing cold
air carried a tantalizing smell of fresh seal meat which Taptuna had
brought along. They all looked so funny dashing about inside the funny
little house, Kak struggling among his team and trying to talk, while
legs, arms, feet, and heads shot in every direction, that his father
laughed and laughed and laughed! It would be a pity, he said, to spoil
the show by letting them out too soon.
“No, no! Let us out. I want to go home,” begged the boy.
“But what about this elegant house? You will not desert it at once?”
Taptuna teased.
“Help! Help!” wailed Kak, with a break in his voice.
So his father, seeing he was in earnest, backed away from the door; and
immediately the dogs tumbled out with Kak on top of them, all snowy
and furry and glad to be free.
There was frozen fish for a picnic breakfast on the sled, with raw seal
for the dogs; and while they all four ate, Taptuna continued jollying
Kak about his new home. The boy did not mind now because he was in the
open air and having a good meal. Of course, being Eskimos, they thought
frozen fish a dandy breakfast even for a cold morning. Kak ate his
up to the last crumb, and it put him in such good humor that he was
willing to laugh at his house, and to own the tiny shelter did not look
much viewed from outside by critical eyes on a bright, sunny day. To
begin with, it was very low--more like a mushroom than a beehive, for
the top of the dome had sunk in a little from its own weight and not
being properly built; and it was far from round; and far from smooth;
and the crooked small blocks sat every which way.
“But it did stand up!” its owner cried defensively. “And it was cozy
inside with the dogs, and saved us from the wind and the snow and
wolves and bears and being frozen. I had to try to make it!”
“You did well, my son,” said Taptuna, suddenly growing serious. “And
the house is very good for a first effort, and in the dark, too. I’m
proud of you. Not only because you were able to build a house for
yourself, but because you had the right idea in an emergency; the
common sense to know what you needed and the pluck to go after it.”
When his father praised him Kak felt the tears rush again to his eyes;
so all at once he began to be very busy harnessing the dogs.
Now although Taptuna teased about the night’s adventure he was really
and truly bursting with pride over his clever son. He brought Guninana
and Hitkoak, at different times, to see the mushroom. Kak’s house
became famous. The story of how the boy had weathered that night
alone and sheltered his team from the gale was told and retold, till
he swaggered like a man on the strength of this great achievement.
His mother began to consult him about things instead of issuing
orders; while the neighbor girls and Noashak were filled with awe and
admiration. They never again dared to make faces or pull mouths at Kak;
and never doubted his most gorgeous boast.