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Updated: June 2, 2025
"'Tis a strange language an' I'm wonderin' how they understands un," he observed as he turned over to go to sleep. Very early the next morning he heard Akonuk calling to Matuk to wake up. Then for a little while the two Eskimos conversed together and finally the lamp was lighted.
Akonuk and Bob ran ahead on their snow-shoes to break the way for the dogs, which Matuk drove, and found it necessary to constantly urge the animals on with shouts of "Oo-isht! Oo-isht! Ok-suit! Ok-suit!" and sometimes with stinging cuts of his long whip.
When Bob came out of his bag to eat he realized that a storm was raging outside, for he could hear the wind roaring around the igloo, and Akonuk made him understand that a heavy snow-storm was in progress and a continuation of the journey that day quite out of the question.
Then while Matuk cut more blocks and handed them to Akonuk as they were needed, the latter standing in the centre of the structure placed them upon edge upon the other blocks, building them up in spiral form, and narrowing in each upper round until the igloo assumed the form of a dome.
As he descended the hill a flake of snow struck his face and it was followed by others. A breath of wind like a blast from a bellows swirled the flakes abroad. The elements were awakening. In the igloos Akonuk and Matuk were brewing tea for supper and the three ate in silence. Bob asked once, "What's to be done with Chealuk?" "Nothing," they answered laconically.
Akonuk and Matuk, after much difficulty, for he could understand their Eskimo tongue so imperfectly, explained to him that there was no means of reaching the mainland as there were no boats on the island, and that after the food they had was eaten there would be no means of procuring more, as the island had no game upon it.
They had landed upon the windward side of the island at a point where they were exposed to the full sweep of the gale. "Peungeatuk" very bad said Akonuk. Then he told Bob to remain by the dogs while he and Matuk looked for a sheltered camping place. In half an hour Matuk returned, his face wreathed in smiles, with the information, "Innuit, igloo."
In the morning while they were drinking their hot tea Bob told Akonuk and Matuk of the apparition he had seen in the night. "That," they said in awe, "was the spirit of Torngak," and Bob was duly impressed. Upon a visit later to the other igloos he missed Chealuk. She had always sat in one corner plying her needle, and had always had a word for him when he came in to pay a visit.
Then he and Bob drove the dogs to the lee side of the island, where they found four large snow igloos and several men, women and children, standing outside waiting to see the white traveller. The Eskimos received Bob kindly, and they asked him inside while some of the men helped Akonuk and Matuk erect an igloo and fix up their camp.
Bob wanted to go on without delay but Akonuk and Matuk had found none of the Eskimos willing to proceed with him.
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