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In a few minutes the women's large open boat was alongside, and poor Ondikik was, with some difficulty, transferred to it. Two men then gave up their kayaks to two of the women, and took their places in the oomiak. While this was being done some of the people gave a shout of alarm, for it was observed that Gartok himself had quietly fallen back in a state of insensibility.
An explosion of laughter from everybody showed that the little joke was appreciated; but Okiok became suddenly grave, and sobered his family instantly, as he turned to Rooney and said "I wish that Angut had been there. He would have saved your big oomiak and all the men." "Indeed. Is he then such a powerful angekok?" "Yes; very, very powerful. There never was an angekok like him."
These had discovered the camp, entered it, professing to be wandering hunters, and had then returned to their friends with the news that many of the men had gone away hunting, and would probably remain out all night; also that an oomiak full of women had gone off to the southward to fish.
The mother of Unga was crafty, and I grew angry at the shame in which I stood before my people. So that night I added till it became a great pile, and I hauled up my oomiak, which was of the value of twenty kayaks. And in the morning there was no pile. 'Then made I preparation for the wedding, and the people that lived even to the east came for the food of the feast and the potlatch token.
In the stern of the oomiak sat an old grey-headed man, who filled the office of steersman; a duty which usually devolves upon old men after they become unfit to manage the kayak.
We continued, on the first of August, to beat to the westward, between Nottingham Island and the North Shore, the distance between which is about four leagues, and the latter fringed with numerous islands. In the course of the morning, several canoes and one oomiak came off from the mainland, containing about twenty persons, more than half of whom were women and children.
In the forenoon an oomiak also came from the shore, and as no intercourse with them was permitted till after divine service, they became very impatient to barter their commodities, and walked on the ice alongside the ships, with a number of trifling things in their hands, vociferating "pilletay" to such a degree that we could hardly hear ourselves speak.
The horde of natives did, at last, request it in a rather forceful and threatening way. The three men, whom Jarvis had singled out as "'eathen from another tribe," became so insulting that Dave could scarcely restrain Jarvis from braining their leader on the spot. They were led to the edge of the ice-floe where, hidden in a remote corner, was an oomiak, a native boat of skins.
Prince slid his body over the edge of the bunk and joined them. 'I am Naass, a chief, and the son of a chief, born between a sunset and a rising, on the dark seas, in my father's oomiak. All of a night the men toiled at the paddles, and the women cast out the waves which threw in upon us, and we fought with the storm.
He finished the sentence in the most expressive manner by fainting dead away, and falling over to one side so heavily that he would have infallibly upset the little craft if his comrades had not been close at hand to prevent that catastrophe. "Hail the oomiak!" cried Gartok, in a voice that, for him, felt singularly feeble. "Put him into it, and let two of the women change with two of the men."
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