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Turning a scowling face at the only two standing natives, one of whom had a fresh cut across his cheek, he stormed: "And why have these fellows no shame? Tell them to fall down at once, or I will step on them." Azazruk repeated the message, and, surprised and frightened, the two men obeyed.
The Doctor had been the first to succumb to the poison of polluted air. In this crisis Dave was not alone at the wheel. The Eskimo boy, Azazruk, was by his side. It was for just such a time as this that he had taught the bright young native something of the control of the mechanism. Each wheel of the operating devices was numbered. He had taught the Eskimo a formula by pains-taking repetition.
Men, women and children, with a wild wail, threw themselves flat on their stomachs, uttering the most melancholy moans that ever came from human lips. Interspersed with the cries were apparent appeals addressed to the visitors. "What's all this rumpus?" the Doctor demanded of Azazruk, the Eskimo. "Can you understand their jargon?"
Now, as he reeled and a great wave of dizzy sickness came over him, while he sank to the floor, Dave was glad he had taught Azazruk; for the boy, with a strange, strained look of terror in his eye, stood still at the wheel. Dimly he felt, rather than saw, a dark shadow pass over them. As in a dream he whispered the magic formula: "One seven ten three five."
Dividing themselves into two parties, one to watch camp, the other to hunt, they immediately set about their tasks. The first day's hunt was under the direction of Azazruk, the Eskimo. The results were more than gratifying. Two ringed seals, one oogrook, ten feet long, and one young polar bear were the bag for the day.
But finally Azazruk made out that only an hour before, as he watched the reindeer, a great hairy monster had dashed at the herd, scattering it far and wide, and carrying away a yearling buck as easily as if it had been a rabbit. "Probably a white bear," suggested Rainey. "Not probable," said the Doctor. "A bear would eat his prey where it was slain." "A wolf?" "Couldn't do it." "Well, what then?"
Azazruk, the Eskimo, thought that he had heard from an old man of his tribe that the point was inhabited by a people who spoke a different language from that spoken by the Chukches of East Cape and Whaling, on the Russian side of Behring Strait. But of this he could not be sure.
They looked on in silent awe. It was with the greatest difficulty that Jarvis succeeded in finding one of them who was able to speak the Chukche language of Behring Strait, a language that was understood by Azazruk, the Eskimo. When, at last, he did find a man who knew Chukche and who was not too frightened to talk, he plied him with many questions.
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