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Updated: May 10, 2025
The seal was very weak now, and Kesshoo knew that it would soon come to the surface and float and that then he could tow it in. He had not long to wait. The bladder bobbed about for a while and then was still. Kesshoo drew up the line, and paddled back to the ice raft, towing the big seal after him. "Catch this," he said to Menie. He threw him the end of the line.
Menie and Koko held the dogs back as hard as they could. Kesshoo and Koko's father crept forward with their bows in their hands. The fog was so thick they could not see very far before them. They had gone only a short distance, when out of the fog loomed two great gray shadows. Instantly the two men dropped on their knees and took careful aim. The reindeer did not see them.
Sometimes Kesshoo went egg hunting on the cliff, and sometimes he set traps there for foxes, and he helped Menie and Koko make a little trap to catch hares. There was plenty to do in every season of the year. At last the nights shortened to nothing at all. The long day had begun. The stone but, which they had found so comfortable in winter, seemed dark and damp now.
He said afterward that he could have turned the boat right side up again with just his nose, without using either his paddle or his arms, if only his nose had been a little bigger, and though he meant this for a joke, the twins believed that he really could do it. The moment he was right side up again, Kesshoo gave chase once more to the bladder.
The dogs were good hunting dogs. They knew better than to bark. They walked on a little farther. Then Kesshoo came very near the others and spoke in a low voice. He said, "We are coming to a spot where there are likely to be reindeer. The wind is from the south. If we keep on in this direction, the reindeer will smell us.
Nip even snapped at the Angakok's ear! That made the Angakok more angry than ever. He reached into the room, seized Nip with one hand and flung him up on to the sleeping bench. Nip lit on top of Menie. Nip was very much surprised, and so was Menie. Now, whether the jerk he gave in throwing Nip did it or not, I cannot say, but at that instant Kesshoo and Koolee both gave a great pull in front.
The men gently pushed it farther out until it floated. Then the men got into their kyaks at the water's edge, fastened their skin coats over the rims, and paddled out into deep water. At last, when all the boats, big and little, were afloat, Kesshoo called out, "We are going north. Follow me." The women obeyed the signal of Koko's father and the Angakok. The paddles dipped together into the water.
Kesshoo reached the bladder and began to pull on the line, but just at that moment the big seal turned round and swam right under the kyak! In a second the kyak turned bottom side up in the water! Menie screamed. The people watching on the shore gave a great howl, and Koko's father started up the beach after his own kyak.
They got there just in time to hear Koko's father say to Kesshoo, "I think it's safe to start. The ice is pretty well out of the bay, and the reindeer will be coming down to the fiords after fresh moss." All the men listened to hear what Kesshoo would say, and the twins listened, too, with all their ears. "If it's clear, I think we could start after one more sleep," said Kesshoo.
She ran out of the tunnel with it in her mouth, just as Menie and Koko got round to the front of the igloo once more. "I-yi! I-yi!" they screamed, "Tooky's got the meat!" Kesshoo caught up his dog-whip and came running from the storehouse. The other two dogs wanted the meat too. They flew at Tooky and snarled and fought with her to get it. Then Koolee's head appeared in the tunnel hole!
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