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Updated: June 29, 2025
"Now," continued his master, "you will go to the hut of Okiok. Enter it hurriedly, and say to Nunaga that her father's grandmother, Kannoa, is ill ill in her mind and will not rest till she comes to see her.
At present you tell me your hut is closed because you have no wife no kinswoman." "That is true," returned the Eskimo; "my mother is dead; my father was killed; I have no brothers, no sisters. But when I am at home old Kannoa cooks for me. She is a good woman, and can make us comfortable." "Just so, Angut. I'll be content to have the old woman for a nurse as long as I need one.
Even in the act he did not forget Kannoa. He made a blind grasp at her in passing, but found her not, for that remarkable woman, at the first alarm, and being well aware of what was coming, had sprawled off at the rear, and was already on the ice in safety. The two now set to work to rescue Angut and the dogs.
The consequence was, that on reaching the place where the divergence had actually taken place, he pulled up, and got off the sledge to examine. "You're right," remarked Rooney, who accompanied his friend, while old Kannoa remained with the dogs. "It's easy to see that a sledge has turned off here." "Quite easy," responded the Eskimo, with suppressed eagerness; "we will follow."
When he had entered the abode of Angut a deep sigh of relief escaped from the multitude, and they made up for their enforced silence by breaking into a gush of noisy conversation. In his new abode Red Rooney found Angut and old Kannoa, with a blazing lamp and steaming stove-kettle, ready to receive him.
The last to disappear was Kunelik, whose tail flapped on the door-post like a small pistol-shot as she doubled round it and scrambled out, leaving Rooney, Angut, Kannoa, and Ippegoo to enjoy the situation. When the lamps were rekindled by Kannoa, it was discovered that the old lady's nostrils were twitching and her throat contracting in a remarkable manner, with smothered laughter.
Drawing back with a shudder, a feeling of mingled horror, rage, and tender pity oppressed him as he thought of Kannoa's poor old bones being shattered on the rocks, or swallowed by the waves at the foot of the cliff, while behind and through Kannoa there rose up the vision of that grandmother in the old country, whose image seemed to have acquired a fixed habit of beckoning him to come home, with a remonstrative shake of the head and a kindly smile.
Old Kannoa, who also gazed into the clear depths, was here observed to smile benignantly, and wave one of her skinny arms, while with the other she pointed downwards.
Rooney went and picked it up, and laid it at the upper end of the hut farthest from the door. "Now, mother," said he; "you'll not touch that skin. Let it lie there, and let no one touch it till I come again. You understand?" "Yes," answered Kannoa, with a look so intensely knowing that it made the seaman laugh.
She is quite willing to live or die with Angut and Ridroonee." With a slight smile the Eskimo resumed his place and whip. Rooney patted Kannoa on the head as he sat down beside her, and called her a "brave old girl." Another moment, and the dogs were out on the glassy plain, galloping as well as they could, and yelping as much from fear of the rending and bending ice as the cracking whip.
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