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Had Oxeomadiddlee not struck a dead walrus we might have had three, for an ahwahtah was attached to his line, so that we could have regained it at any time with the boat. The walrus never appeared to me the dangerous animal I have known him to be represented.

One of my companions in this hunt Toogoolar, or Oxeomadiddlee, as he is usually called is a famous walrus hunter, and his success is probably largely due to his immense physical strength. He is a perfect Esquimau Samson, and when he is on one end of a line, with his feet braced against a hummock, the walrus at the other end has no advantage. Indeed, the odds are in favor of Oxeomadiddlee.

But Oxeomadiddlee was on his guard, and being a man of immense strength, he caught his adversary by the wrist, and by the sheer force of his grip compelled him to drop the weapon on the floor. He then released his hold, and Iteguark rushed out to his own igloo and got his bow and quiver; but his enemy was still watchful, and took the bow and arrows away and destroyed them. Here ended hostilities.

Iteguark was not disposed to submit meekly to this treachery on the part of his friend Oxeomadiddlee, so one morning while the truant wife and her new husband were sleeping in their igloo, Iteguark entered and sought to take the life of the seducer with a hunting knife.

Oxeomadiddlee paid the old man for his wife, and that settled it forever. Presently another Inuit, named Eyerloo, fell desperately in love with poor old Iteguark's remaining wife, and with his arts and blandishments won her away from her husband. There was no fight this time.

He can still hunt seals through the ice, but cannot work up to them on top of the ice, nor can he chase the reindeer and musk-ox on his native hills. Then it was that Oxeomadiddlee looked with envious eyes upon the youngest and fairest of Iteguark's wives, and induced her to come and live with him.