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"He is too big to look like them," returned the husband. "He's more like a mad walrus. I met him on one of the old floes when I was after a seal, and he frightened it away. But it is not that that troubles me. There are two things he is after: he wants to stir up our young men to go and fight with the Fire-spouters, and he wants our Nootka for a wife."
For at the very time that the Eskimos, in their remote home on the ice-encumbered sea, were informally debating the propriety of making an unprovoked attack on the Dogrib Indians whom they facetiously styled Fire-spouters the red men were also holding a very formal and solemn council of war as to the advisability of making an assault on those presumptuous Eskimos, or eaters-of-raw-flesh, who ventured to pay an uncalled-for visit to the Greygoose River their ancestral property every spring.
"Raventik must have found our enemies," said Gartok to Ondikik, his lieutenant, as he led his men up the slope. "That is certain," returned Ondikik, "and from the noise they are making, I think the Fire-spouters are many. But this is a good place to fight them." "Yes, we will wait here," said Gartok.
"And don't you think that some of the Fire-spouters have also a good deal of determination especially one of them who left the lodges of his people and wandered over the great salt lake all alone in search of his child?" "You speak truth," returned Nootka, with a pleasant nod. "I'll tell you what I think: both our nations are very determined very."
As he spoke Raventik was seen sweeping into view from behind a point in the middle of the most rapid part of the river, and plying his long paddle with the intense energy of one whose life depends on his exertions. The Eskimos on the knoll gazed in breathless anxiety. A few minutes later the canoe of Magadar swept into view. "The Fire-spouters!" exclaimed Ondikik. "Three men in it!" cried Gartok.
Then, as one after another of the canoes came into view, "Four! six! ten of them, and three men in each!" "And all with fire-spouters!" gasped the lieutenant. "Come," exclaimed Gartok, "it is time for us to go!"
But the moment the party entered on the lakes and rivers of the land, Nazinred ordered Adolay to take the bow paddle of his native craft, himself took the steering paddle, and from that moment he had quietly assumed the office of guide to the expedition. "Fire-spouters!" exclaimed Cheenbuk, on hearing the shots of the traders' guns. "Yes my countrymen," replied Nazinred.
"What right had you to go without your fire-spouters to attack them?" demanded old Uleeta, somewhat maliciously. Gartok, who was destitute neither of intelligence nor of humour, laughed, but the laugh slid into a most emphatic "hoi!" as his mother gave the leg a wrench. "Softly, mother, softly! Treat me as you did when I was so big," he exclaimed, indicating about one foot six between his hands.
I too have been to the Whale River, and have seen the fire-spouters, and I know they are not nearly alive. They are dead quite dead. Moreover, they will not spout at all, and are quite useless, unless they are filled with a kind of black sand which is supplied by the white men who sell the spouters.
This question seemed to puzzle the Indian so much that he proceeded to fill another pipe before answering it. Meanwhile the Eskimo, being more active-minded, continued "Is it fair for the men of the woods to come to fight us with fire-spouters when we have only spears? Meet us with the same weapons, and then we shall see which are the best men."
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