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"Him Unaga!" Julyman protested, his outstretched arm shaking. "No mak' him? Yes?" "We mak' this!" It was Oolak who answered him. He spoke with a preliminary, contemptuous grunt. He, too, was pointing. But he was pointing at that which lay near at hand.
"How's the boy?" he demanded abruptly. Ross put his instruments away and set the water bowl aside. Then he set the stoppered bottles back into his case. "He'll be 'whooping' it up with the boys in a couple of days," he said. "An-ina?" "Beating the 'reaper' out of sight." Steve drew a deep breath. "Oolak was all to pieces," he said doubtfully.
But he not know the voice of the spirits that speak much with Indian man. Oolak know him. So. An' the father of Oolak. Oh, yes. So we find this fire sometime. We find him. This fire of the world. The spirits tell Oolak, so him not afraid nothing." Julyman set a pannikin down with a clatter. He raised a brown hand pointing. He was pointing at Oolak, and his eyes were wide with inspiration.
Just for a moment the white man stood gazing down the shadowed trail. Then he moved off in the direction of his four-roomed log house. Left alone the Indians remained at the fireside; Oolak the silent indifferent to everything about him except the pleasant warmth of the fire; Julyman, on the contrary, angrily alert. He was listening to the sounds which grew momentarily louder and more distinct.
It run so as water. It fill 'em up all things everywhere. An' it burn all up. Not boss Steve an' Julyman. Oh, no." Steve meditated awhile. Oolak needed an interpretation of his dream, or, anyway, must listen to the voice of comfort. He understood this as he gazed upon the partially crippled body of the man who was still a giant on the trail. The passing of years had touched Steve lightly enough.
Julyman grinned his relief that the white man saw nothing serious in that which all Indians regard as the voice of the spirits haunting their world. "Oolak eat plenty, much," he observed slyly. Steve helped himself to meat from the pan and dipped some beans from the camp kettle beside the fire. "Dreams are damn-fool things, anyway," he said.
The flat denial of his "boss" was quite without effect upon Julyman. Oolak, beside him, roused himself sufficiently to turn his head and blink enquiry at him. He was a silent creature whose admiration for those who could sustain prolonged talk was profound. "All same, boss, that so," Julyman protested without emotion. "Him same like all men. Him just man, squaw, pappoose.
He reached out and daringly plucked a great stem supporting a perfect bloom. He stood gazing into the deep, cup-like heart for prolonged moments. He was thinking of Ian Ross and the days so far back in his mind. Fifteen years? Yes. More. And now He contemplated with joy the labours ahead. The return to Oolak and Julyman. The work of the harvest. The portaging of it. The packing of the sleds.
Half a mile from the grey headland which was their starting point, confidence received its first check. It was Oolak who made discovery. The watchful, silent creature was unerring in his instincts, unerring in his scent of a treachery he always anticipated. He had halted his dogs, and stood in the half light, peering out this way and that at the legions of ice spectres surrounding them.
But the effect of these things was only in appearance. His vigour of body remained unimpaired. His silence was even more profound. And his mastery of the trail dogs left him a source of endless admiration to his companions. Steve dipped some tea into a pannikin. "Oolak had a nightmare, I guess," he said, feeling that a gentle ridicule could do no harm.
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