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Ujarak," at last shouted the jovial Simek, who was one of those genial, uproarious, loud-laughing spirits, that can keep the fun of a social assembly going by the mere force and enthusiasm of his animal spirits; "come, tell us about that wonderful bear you had such a fight with last moon, you remember?"
On discovering that Nunaga and the children were not at Moss Bay, and that there were no fresh sledge tracks in that region to tell of their whereabouts, Simek drove back to the village at a wild scamper, in a state of mind very much the reverse of jovial.
I sat down again on a rib to consider. If I had been a real angekok, my torngak no doubt would have helped me at that time but he did not." "How could you have a torngak at all if you are not a real angekok?" demanded the wizard, in a tone that savoured of contempt. "You shall hear. Patience!" returned Simek quietly, and then went on:
"But surely," urged Simek, "if so many spirits speak to you, they must tell you something?" "They tell me much," replied Angut in a contemplative tone, "but nothing about hunting." "Have you no opinion, then, on that subject?" "Yes, I have an opinion, and it is strong. Let all the hunters go south after seals without delay; but I will not go. I shall go among the icebergs alone."
Of course the company, as well as Rooney, greeted the proposal with pleasure, for although Simek did not often tell of his own exploits, and made no pretension to be a graphic story-teller, they all knew that whatever he undertook he did passably well, while his irrepressible good-humour and hilarity threw a sort of halo round all that he said. "Well, my friends, it was a terrible business!"
"You don't think like most of your countrymen," said Rooney, regarding the grave earnest face of his friend with increased interest. There was a touch of sadness in the tone of the Eskimo as he replied "No; I sometimes wonder for their minds seem to remain in the childish condition; though Okiok and Simek do seem at times as if they were struggling into more light.
"Boh! ba! boo!" exclaimed Simek, after a sudden guffaw; "that's not equal to what I did to the walrus. Did I ever tell it you, friends? but never mind whether I did or not. I'll tell it to our guest the Kablunet now." The jovial hunter was moved to this voluntary and abrupt offer of a story by his desire to prevent anything like angry feeling arising between Okiok and the wizard.
Strong, almost, as a young Greenland fawn, and gifted, apparently, with some of that animal's power to find its way through the woods, she was not long of hitting the right direction, and gaining the coast, along which she ran at her utmost speed. On arriving breathless and thoroughly exhausted she found to her dismay that Angut, Simek, Rooney, and Okiok had left.
Indeed Rooney had become so excited as well as interested in the game, that it was all he could do to restrain himself from leaping into the midst of the struggling mass and taking a part. He greeted the pause and the inquiring gaze with a true British cheer, which additionally charmed as well as surprised the natives. But their period of rest was brief. Simek had the ball at the time.
Had the tunnel entrance of the hut been long and strong, suffocation to many must have been the result, for they went into it pell-mell, rolling rather than running. Fortunately, it was short and weak. Ujarak and Simek, sticking in it, burst it up, and swept it away, thus clearing the passage for the rest.
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