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Updated: June 27, 2025


When Annadoah passed from her tent into her new home the women scolded her bitterly. The men goodnaturedly jeered Ootah. Annadoah huddled near Ootah and gazed gratefully into his eyes. In the thought that he was there to protect her the heart of Ootah pulsed with joy. Annadoah's heart was cold. Annadoah sat inside the new little house of snow, the oil lights flickering fitfully.

Being very simple, he had always thought that by securing wealth, in dogs and food, in guns and ammunition, and by achieving pre-eminence on the hunt, he should win Annadoah's confidence and love. But now, upon the breath of the winds, by the voices of nature, doubt came into his heart.

Among the others, of whom there were about twenty-five, the remainder was proportionately divided. For himself Ootah reserved only as much as he gave the others. Outside Annadoah's igloo all engaged in a joyous revel. Hungrily they feasted upon the raw meat. Then they beat drums and danced. Their voices rose in hilarious chants. Wild joy shook them. Ootah was acclaimed hero of the tribe.

The mistake of many men the world over, and of many wiser than he, he could not understand just why this was this thing the winds said, and which his own heart correspondingly whispered. With food he might possibly win Annadoah's consent to be his wife, yes, he knew that; but Annadoah's love that was another thing.

Sinking to the earth he rubbed Annadoah's hands and breathed with eager and enraptured transport into her face. He called her name. Presently she stirred. "Ootah," she murmured. "It is very dark very dark I wonder . . . whether . . . it will soon . . . be spring." He chafed her hands. For a lucid moment she nestled to him and in a terrified voice whispered "Maisanguaq where is he?"

But Annadoah's hands were cold, her eyes were sullenly turned away. In her heart a vague fear of him, a resentment of his very love, stirred. "My shadow yearns to the south," she repeated pathetically. "I shall wait. Perhaps he will come as he said when the spring hunting sings." In her heart she feared that he would not. Ootah in utter anguish dropped her hands. Annadoah sadly turned away.

She importuned the spirits of the sea and air to return her beloved ones to her. "Nerrvik! Nerrvik!" Annadoah supplicated persuasively, "gentle spirit of the sea, lift Ootah unto me! Thou who art kind to man and givest him fishes from the deep for food, give unto Annadoah's arms Little Blind Spring Bunting."

The sun, circling low about the horizon, shifted its rays, and within the nebulous cloud-masses in the valleys, fountains of prism light played. In this radiant phantasmagoria messages in turn came to Ootah. He saw the figuration of Annadoah's tent, and within, reclining upon her couch, the form of Annadoah. At the mirage picture of the beauteous and beloved maiden his heart throbbed violently.

Like the other women, Annadoah sat by her lamp day after day. When she could endure hunger no longer she would eat ravenously of the meagre food in the pot. Regular meals are unknown in the arctic a native abstains from food as long as he can in days of famine, but when he eats he eats unstintedly. As Ootah entered the low enclosure Annadoah's eyes lighted.

Between them they carried a small stark body. The woman was weeping piteously. It was their child, which a brief while before had died. The sea monster had again claimed its human toll. Papik and Ootah disappeared Papik to his shelter, Ootah to Annadoah's igloo. The parents, left alone, dug up stones and ice and buried the child. Then beneath the stars they stood in silent grief.

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