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"He says his name is Khanálpooginuk." "Where did he get that coat and sword?" "He says 'the Great White Chief' gave it to him for a dead reindeer." This was not very satisfactory, and Meranef was instructed to get some more intelligible information.
Sometime during the same week, Dodd and Meranef returned from Tigil with a new supply of tea, sugar, rum, tobacco, and hardbread, and we began collecting dogs from the neighbouring settlements of Kinkil and Polan for another trip across the Samanka Mountains.
The ceremony was evidently over. Turning to Meranef, who with a delighted grin had watched its progress, we inquired what it all meant. "Were they married?" "Da's," was the affirmative reply. "But," we objected, "he didn't catch her." "She waited for him, your honour, in the last polog, and if he caught her there it was enough." "Suppose he had not caught her there, then what?"
Meranef! Come and talk to this fellow, I can't make him say anything." Dodd suggested that he might be a messenger from the expedition of Sir John Franklin, with late advices from the Pole and the North-west Passage, and the silent owner of the sword bowed affirmatively, as if this were the true solution of the mystery. "Are you a pickled cabbage?" suddenly inquired Dodd in Russian.
Leaving our Cossack Meranef, seconded by the Major, to explain our business and wants, Dodd and I strolled away to make a critical inspection of the encampment.
As soon as the deer had been gathered together again and a guard placed over them, the Koraks crowded curiously around the visitors who had entered so unceremoniously their quiet camp, and inquired through Meranef, our interpreter, who we were and what we wanted.
With a good fire, however, and plenty of hot tea, we succeeded in making ourselves very comfortable inside the yurt, and passed away the long evening in smoking Circassian tobacco and pine bark, singing American songs, telling stories, and quizzing our good-natured but unsophisticated Cossack Meranef.
Sad is the lot of children born in such a place. Until they are old enough to climb up the chimney pole they never see the outside world. The weather on the day after our arrival at Shestakóva was much better, and our Cossack Meranef, who was on his way back to Tigil, bade us good-bye, and started with two or three natives for Kamenoi.
The Unknown intimated by a very emphatic bow that he was. "He doesn't understand anything!" said Dodd in disgust; "where's Meranef?" Meranef soon made his appearance, and began questioning the mysterious visitor in a scarlet coat as to his residence, name, and previous history. For the first time he now found a voice. "What does he say?" asked the Major; "what's his name?"
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