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Updated: May 13, 2025
And none could know better the meaning of its frowning than Steve. "Wot's us looking at, Uncle Steve?" The childish treble piped its demand without the boy withdrawing his gaze from the grim picture of winter's approach. In a moment Steve's pre-occupation vanished. He smiled down on the fascinating little bundle of furs as he replied. "Oolak, old fellow, Oolak, and Uncle Steve's outfit.
He raised his face, and his sensitive nostrils distended with a deep intake of breath. A moment later he made a swift gesture with the gee-pole on which he had been supporting himself. "I mak' him smell. So!" He spoke with unusual animation. Steve had been seeking and waiting for just such words. "You smell what?" he demanded. "Oolak smell him all sweet lak' lak' " Steve interrupted with a nod.
The din subsided almost in a moment. Steve reached the sled where Julyman had beaten the dogs to the required condition. In a moment they were at work setting things to rights. After that the dogs were strung out afresh, and Julyman "mushed" them on, and brought them abreast of the train of the waiting Oolak. The dogs crouched down on the rough surface of the inhospitable ice.
The terror of that through which they had passed was still in his mind. So, too, with the fiery heart of Unaga that lay ahead. Oolak had nothing to add, so he kept to his customary silence. Steve shook his head. "There's no quitting," he said simply. "Guess we've come nigh three hundred miles. We've got through a territory to break the heart of a stone image.
When Oolak dropped over the side of a canyon, with most of the outfit the reindeer went with him. You see, we'd rid ourselves of the dogs. We couldn't feed 'em. Well, I guessed the end had come. But it hadn't. Julyman and An-ina took up the work of hauling, while I carried Marcel. Only they hauled Oolak instead of the outfit.
"Him fire," said Oolak, wiping the grease from his lips on the sleeve of his furs. "Him big fires. Oolak know. Him not eat plenty. Him see this thing. The spirits show him so he know all time." Steve gulped his tea down, and set the pannikin on the ground. "That's crazy," he declared. "It's not spirits who show Oolak. It's as Julyman says. He eats plenty.
So does Marcel. We both want you bad. Unaga it's a hell of a country, but you come along right up there with us, and I'll fix things so you'll be as happy as that darn country'll let you be. Julyman and Oolak are going along with us. They've quit the police, same as I have. I can't do without them, same as we can't do without An-ina. We're going there for the boy. Not for ourselves. It's the weed.
Their great limbs were shaking under heavy coats of fur, and they whimpered plaintively, stirred by some unspeakable apprehension. The men were standing by, gazing back over the ghostly field of ice, with wonder and disquiet in their eyes. Again it was Oolak who spoke. He pointed at the headland from which they had started. It was dim, shadowy, half lost in the grey twilight.
So him go." "And Julyman? And Oolak?" "All gone. All him gone by land of fire. Oh, yes." An-ina sighed. It was her only means of expressing the feelings she could not deny. Marcel's eyes had sobered. He flung off his pea-jacket and possessed himself of An-ina's chair. He sat there with his great hands spread out to the warmth, enduring the sharp cold-aches it inspired.
The two men were standing in the doorway of the store, just where they had met. Outside were two dog trains newly drawn up, and four figures, stranger figures, were moving about them. Inside the store the clamour of traffic went on undisturbed by the new arrival. Oolak, with his club, continued to shepherd the queer, squat creatures he despised.
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