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During the days when Olafaksoah and his men were hunting or gathering furs and ivory at nearby villages along the coast, Annadoah sewed skins into garments for Olafaksoah and his men. Sometimes she went with Olafaksoah on his expeditions and employed her coquetry upon the susceptible men of the migrating tribes to secure bargains for him.
Now and then, unable to restrain his exuberant joy, Ootah sang his love to the clouds, the waves, the winds. "O winds, O happy winds, speed my message to Annadoah!" he called. "Tell her that I return with the food of the sea! O spirits of the air, breathe to her that Ootah's heart hungers for her as starving ahmingmah desire green grass in winter time.
She trembled and felt inordinately cold. But she knew it was spring, for outside the igloo, with blithesome and silvery sweetness, a bunting was singing. When Annadoah awoke from her delirium of agony she saw that the wise woman had left her. The walls of the igloo sparkled as the flames of the lamp flickered. Over it a pot sizzled with walrus meat frying in fat.
In anger Papik struck the offending member, and drawing his sledge after him proceeded toward his tent. Assisted by a number of the natives, Ootah, smiling, exultant, drew five sled-loads of blubber up over the ice toward Annadoah's tent. With their comparatively meagre portions the others followed. To Annadoah Ootah meant to show the spoils of his quest.
Before them a snaky space of water, blacker than the darkness about them, and capped with faintly phosphorescent crests of tossing waves, separated them Ootah knew not how far from the land. "To the right!" Ootah called. "Let us go onward!" "Huk! Huk!" Maisanguaq encouraged the dogs. "The floe may land near the glacier," Ootah cried. He spoke to Annadoah.
"But I bethought me of Annadoah " he smiled "and I said I go to Annadoah . . . That is how I came . . . I said Annadoah is hungry yea, as I said it when the eyes looked at me on the mountains, when the hill spirits made my heart grow cold, when Koolotah desired to return . . . Koolotah he hath gone . . . Koolotah's dogs are gone . . . But I called upon my dead father, my dead grandfather, and the older ones and I thought of Annadoah."
A flock of gulls passed low over the waters. He called to them that they should take his love to Annadoah. They were to tell Annadoah that he would soon return, laden with food and fuel for the winter. Their raucous cries mocked him. He demanded what they meant. "Ootah Ootah," they seemed to call, "how foolish art thou, Ootah, how foolish art thou to love Annadoah.
Annadoah leaned forward, gazing at it intently, wildly then uttered a scream as though she had been stabbed to the heart. When the wise woman who had left Annadoah alone for a long sleep returned to prepare food and to seek of the spirits the destined name of the child, she saw Annadoah lying still, her face upturned, tear drops glistening beneath her eyes.
Ootah sang for joy. Again he had achieved distinction on the hunt, and so, with all the better chances of success, he believed he might pursue his suit for the hand of Annadoah. With powerful, steady strokes of their paddles the hunters, in their processions of kayaks, towed the walrus through the sea shoreward. They joined unrestrainedly in Ootah's hunting chant. Only Maisanguaq was silent.
"Thou art beautiful, Annadoah; thou canst sew with great skill. With the needles the white men brought thee, thou hast made garments such as no other maiden. Papik would wed thee, Annadoah." "Thou art a good lad, Papik," Annadoah replied, laughing gaily. "But thy fingers are very long and long, indeed, thy nose!" Papik flushed, for to him this was a tragedy.
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