The Walrus Hunters: A Romance of the Realms of Ice

Of course poor Mozwa did not reason thus. He was not cultured enough for that. In fact, he did not reason at all about the matter, as far as we know, but there can be no question that the poor fellow was smitten with the disease of covetousness, and instead of seeking for a cure, like a manly savage, he adopted the too civilised plan of encouraging and excusing it.

Aware of his propensities, Mrs Mozwa was much too knowing to allow the goods and trinkets destined for herself and family to remain in his power. She at once appropriated them, and secreted such of them as she did not require for present use. But there were articles which she could not well treat in that way with any shadow of excuse: for instance, the gun, powder and shot, bows and arrows, tobacco and pipes, hatchets and scalping-knives, blankets and masculine garments, which were in daily use. These were frequently lost and re-won before winter had fairly begun, but Mozwa was too fond of the excitement of gambling to make desperate ventures all at once. He liked to spin it out.

One night he had what is styled a “run of bad luck.” Being in something of a reckless mood, he went to visit a young friend who was as fond of gambling as himself, and took most of his worldly possessions with him. The friend, with a number of companions, was seated beside the wigwam fire, and quite ready to begin.

Taking a button, or some such object, in his hand, and putting both hands behind his back, the friend began to bob his head and shoulders up and down in an idiotic fashion, at the same time chanting in a sing-song monotone, “Ho yo, yo ho, hi ya yoho!” for a considerable length of time, while Mozwa staked his blanket, a fine thick green one, purchased at Great Bear Lake. We forget the friend’s stake, but it was probably supposed to be an equivalent.

Suddenly the yo-ho-ing ceased, both hands, tightly closed, were brought to the front, and the whole party gazed at Mozwa with intense expectation. He was not long in making up his mind. He pointed to the left hand. It was opened, and found to be empty! The blanket was lost. Back went the hands again, and the “yo-ho-ing” was continued. The new gun was the next stake. It also was lost; and thus the game was carried on far into the night, with smaller stakes, until Mozwa had lost almost all that he had brought with him—gun, blanket, pipes, tobacco, flint and steel, fire-bag, and even his coat, so that he walked home a half-naked and nearly ruined man!

But ruin in the wilderness of North America is not usually so thorough as it often is in civilised lands, owing partly to the happy circumstance that strong drink does not come into play and complete the moral destruction, as well as the physical, which gambling had begun. The character therefore, although deteriorated, is not socially lost. The nature of property, also, and the means of acquiring it, render recovery more easy.

When Mozwa returned home minus his new blanket and the beautiful deerskin coat which his wife had made and richly ornamented for him with her own brown hands while he was away, he found his old coat and his old blanket ready for him. The old gun, too, was available still, so that he was not altogether disabled from attending to the duties of the chase, and in a short time afterwards, “luck” being in his favour, he had won back some of his lost possessions. But he was too often in that fluctuating state of alternating excitement and depression which is the invariable accompaniment, in a greater or less degree, of the gambler’s sin, whether carried on in the depths of the Arctic wilderness, the well-named “hells” of London, or the gilded salons of Monaco.

“You are a fool,” said Nazinred one day to his friend—for even among savages there are plain-spoken familiar friends gifted with common sense enough to recognise folly, and spiritual honesty to point it out and warn against it.

“Why does my brother say so?” asked Mozwa, who was not in the least offended by the observation.

“Because you gain nothing by all your gaining except trouble and excitement, and sometimes you gain loss. Here you are, now, obliged to take to your old gun, whose flint will hardly strike fire more than four times out of ten; you are obliged to wrap yourself in the old blanket full of holes; and you come to me to borrow powder and ball.”

“That is true,” replied Mozwa, with a look of self-condemnation. “But,” he added, with a sort of brightly apologetic glance, “sometimes I win, and then I am well off, and it is Magadar who is the fool.”

“Does it make you less of a fool because Magadar is one also? Are you comforted to-day, in your poverty, by the thought that you were well off yesterday?”

Mozwa’s bright glance faded slowly. He was no match for his friend in argument, and, possessing an honest spirit, the look of self-condemnation began to creep again over his visage, but, being of a sanguine temperament and hopeful nature, the bright glance returned suddenly.

“Wisdom falls from the lips of my brother,” he said. “I was well off yesterday and I am badly off to-day, but I may be well off again to-morrow—if I have good luck.”

“Yes, and if Magadar has bad luck?” returned his friend. “You cannot both have good luck. Whatever one gains the other must lose—and so it goes on. Should wise men act thus?”

Mozwa was silent. His friend had never before spoken to him in this way. Indeed, no member of the tribe had ever before given utterance to such curious opinions. He knew not what to reply, and Nazinred relapsed into the moody silence which had characterised him more or less since he became aware of his daughter’s departure.

The short autumn of those Hyperborean regions having passed away, the land was speedily locked in a garment of ice and snow, and the long stern winter began.

It was not long before all the lakes and rivers set fast. At first only the lakes solidified, then the more sluggish streams, while the rapids showed out inky black by contrast. Gradually the liquid margins of these were encroached on by the irresistible frost, until they were fairly bridged over, and their existence was only recalled to memory by hollow rumblings below the ice. At last the intensity of the cold overcame the salt sea itself; the floes, hummocks, and bergs became united into one universal mass, and every sign of liquid disappeared from the polar regions.

It was when this condition of things had arrived that the heart-crushed Nazinred proceeded to carry out a plan over which he had been brooding ever since his return from Great Bear Lake. His inquiries had led him to believe that the Eskimo who had carried off his child belonged to the tribe which had recently been pursued by his compatriots, and that they probably dwelt among the islands, some of which were seen, and others known to exist, off the Arctic coast opposite the mouth of the Greygoose River. Moreover, a faint hope, that he would have found it difficult to define, was aroused by the fact that the kidnapper of his child had formerly been the rescuer of his wife.

As we have seen, his first attempt to go off in his canoe in search of Adolay was frustrated by young ice forming on the sea, and for a considerable time afterwards the Arctic Sea was impassable to any kind of craft. Now that the sea had set fast, however, his difficulty was removed, and he resolved to undertake the journey on foot.

Well he knew that no man of his tribe, not even Mozwa, would agree to accompany him on such a wild-goose chase. He therefore not only refrained from making to any of them the proposal, but avoided any allusion to his intentions. Knowing also that Isquay was gifted with such an intense desire for sympathy that she could not resist communicating whatever she knew to a few of her dearest friends—in the strictest confidence—he did not mention the matter to her until all his preparations were completed. Then he told her.

Like a good submissive squaw, she made no objection, though the expression of her face showed that she felt much anxiety.

“Who goes with you?” she asked.

“No one.”

“Is it wise to go alone?” she ventured to suggest.

“It may not be wise, but no one would go with me, I know, and I am determined to find Adolay!”

“How will you travel?”

“With a sledge and four dogs. That will enable me to carry food enough for a long journey. I will take my gun, of course.”

“But what will you do for fire?” objected Isquay; “there are no woods on the ice.”

“I will do without it.”

The poor woman was so amazed at this reply that she gave up further questioning.

“You have plenty strong moccasins ready, have you not?” asked Nazinred, “and pemmican, and dried meat?”

“Yes, plenty. And your snow-shoes are mended, and very strong.”

“That is well. I will take them, but I do not expect to use them much, for the snow on the Great Salt Lake is not soft like the snow in the woods.”

It was afternoon when this conversation was held, and very dark, for the sun had by that time ceased to rise much above the horizon, even at noon. Late in the night, however, there was brilliant light both from the stars and the aurora. Taking advantage of this, Nazinred left his lodge and hastened to the outskirts of the village, where a little boy awaited him with the sledge and team of dogs all ready for a start.

Without saying a word the Indian put on his snow-shoes and took hold of the tail-line of the sledge, which was heavily laden, and well packed. With a slight crack of the whip he set the team in motion.

“Tell the old chief,” he said to the boy at parting, “that I go to seek for my daughter among the people of the Frozen Lake. When I find her I will return.”

Chapter Seventeen.

Nazinred’s Journey over the Arctic Sea

While our Indian travelled through the woods he and his dogs were on familiar ground. He encamped at night in the way to which he had been accustomed all his life. That is to say, he selected a spot under a spreading fir-tree, dug away the snow until he got to the ground, which he covered with a carpet of pine branches. At one end of this encampment—or hole in the snow of ten feet or so in diameter—he made a huge fire of dead logs. At the other end he spread his blanket, unpacked his sledge, fed his dogs with some willow-grouse provided for the purpose, warmed up his pemmican and dried meat, melted some snow for drink, and spent the night in comparative comfort. And it is wonderful, reader, how cosy such an encampment in the snow is, when food is plentiful and health strong.

But when our Indian quitted the shore, and began his daring journey on the Arctic Sea, he was surrounded by new and unfamiliar conditions. No trees were to be had for firewood, no branches for bedding, no overhanging pines for shelter. He had gone there, however, prepared for the change.

The sea near the shore had been set fast when in a comparatively smooth condition, so that, the first day’s march over, it was easy. As he had expected, the surface of the snow had been drifted quite hard, so that he could dispense with snow-shoes altogether, and the four dogs found the sledge so light that they felt disposed now and then to run away with it; but Nazinred checked this propensity by holding on to the tail-line, thus acting as a drag. Ere long the shore was left out of sight behind, and the first of the islets—a small group—also passed and left behind.

When night was well advanced the Indian found himself on the ice of the open sea with nothing but hummocks and bergs to shelter him. Being acquainted, by hearsay at least, with some of the methods of the Eskimos, he avoided the bergs, for there was the danger of masses falling from their sides and from overhanging ice-cliffs, and selected a small hummock—a heap of masses that had been thrown or crushed up earlier in the winter, covered with snow, and formed into a solid mound. The light air that blew over the frozen plain was scarcely worth taking into account, nevertheless the Indian chose the lee side of the hummock and then began to try his “prentice hand” at the erection of a snow-hut.

Nazinred had indeed some doubts as to the value of such a cold habitation without fire, but he knew that Eskimos sometimes used such, and what they could do he could dare. Besides, love is strong as death—and he meant to find Adolay or die!

His hut, as might have been expected, was not such as an Eskimo architect would have praised, but it was passable for a first attempt. He knew that the northern masons built their winter dwellings in the form of a dome, therefore he essayed the same form; but it fell in more than once before the keystone of the arch was fixed.

“Never mind,” thought Nazinred; “they have done it—I can do it.”

Nothing is impossible to men of this stamp. He persevered, and succeeded after a couple of hours in producing a sort of misshapen bee-hive about six feet in diameter, and four feet high. The slabs of snow of which it was composed were compact and solid, though easily cut with his scalping-knife, and formed bricks that could resist the influence of the fiercest gale. At one side of the hut he cut a hole for a doorway, and reserved the piece cut out for a door. It was just big enough to let his broad shoulders pass through, and when he got inside and lay down at length to test it, he gave a slight “humph!” of satisfaction. Not that the chamber was cheerful—far from it, for it was intensely dark,—but our Indian was a practical man. He did not require light to enable him to sleep or rest.

While engaged in constructing the hut, he observed that the four dogs were sitting on their tails doing nothing except gazing in curiosity, if not surprise, at his unwonted proceedings. Being a busy man, he naturally disliked idlers, and therefore unlashed some food from his sledge and served out their supper by way of giving them something to do. They ceased idling at once, but after supper sat down on their tails again to watch as before, though in a more languid frame of mind.

When the hut was finished he sat down outside, the night being clear and comparatively warm, or rather, we should say, not bitterly cold. During the meal he kept up the interest of the dogs to a keenly hopeful point by occasionally tossing a morsel to each. When the meal was over, and they knew from long experience that nothing more was to be hoped for, they curled themselves up in the lee of the hut, and, with a glorious disregard of bedding and all earthly things, went to sleep.

It was found rather difficult to get the sledge into the hut, as Nazinred had forgotten to make allowance for its size, but by enlarging the door and manoeuvring, the difficulty was overcome—a matter of considerable importance, for there was no knowing what Arctic monsters might take a fancy to play havoc with its contents while its owner slept.

Then the Indian spread a large deerskin with the hair on over the floor of his hut, and was about to spread his blankets above that, when he remembered that he would want water to drink in the morning—for it is well-known that eating snow during the intense cold of Arctic winters is very hurtful. He had provided for this by taking a bladder with him, which he meant to fill with snow each night and take it to bed with him, so that his animal heat—and he had plenty of that—might melt some of it before morning. He was then on the point of closing up the doorway when it occurred to him that if the dogs were inside they might make the place warmer, but upon reflection he feared that they might also make it suffocating—for the dogs were large and the hut was small. After pondering the subject for a few minutes, he decided to take only one of them inside.

“Attim, come,” he said quietly, as if speaking to a human friend.

Attim, without any remark save a wag of his tail, arose promptly, entered the hut, and lay down. You see, he was accustomed to little attentions of the sort.

At last, everything being completed, Nazinred closed the door, plastered it well with snow round the seams, so as to render the place air-tight, wrapped himself in his blankets, took the bladder of snow to his bosom, laid his wearied head on one of his bundles, and prepared to slumber.

But ere he reached the land of forgetfulness an idea struck him, which, Indian though he was, caused him to smile even in the dark.

“Attim,” he murmured.

“Here you are,” replied Attim’s tail with a flop that was quite as expressive as the tongue—and softer.

“You take charge of that,” said the sly man, transferring the bladder of snow from his own bosom to that of the dog; “you have more heat than I have.”

Whether the Indian was right in this belief we cannot say, but the humble-minded dog received the charge as a special favour, and with an emphatic “I will” from its ever-sensitive tail again lay down to repose.

Thereafter the two went to sleep, and spent six or seven hours of unbroken rest, awaking simultaneously and suddenly to find that the dogs outside were also awake and wishing to get in. Indeed, one of them had already scraped a hole in the wall that would soon have admitted him had not his master given him a tap on the nose with the butt of his gun.

Of course it was still dark, for the morning was not far advanced, but the star-light and the aurora were quite sufficient to enable them to see their way, as they set out once more on their lonesome journey.

Breakfast was a meal of which Nazinred made no account. Supper was his chief stand-by, on the strength of which he and his dogs slept, and also travelled during the following day. Soon after they had awakened, therefore, they were far from the hut in which the night had been spent.

The Indian’s plan was to travel in a straight line in the direction in which the Eskimos had been last seen. By so doing he counted upon either crossing their tracks, which he would follow up, or, coming to some large island which might prove to be their winter quarters, would skirt the shores of it in the hope of meeting with some of the tribes of which he was in search. The expedition, it will be seen, was somewhat of the nature of a forlorn hope, for drifting snow quickly obliterates tracks, and if the natives, when found, should turn out to be hostile, they would probably take from him his little possessions, if not also his life. But Nazinred’s love for Adolay was too strong to admit of his allowing such thoughts to weigh with him. Ere long, he found himself far from his woodland home, lost among the rugged solitudes of ice, with a fast diminishing supply of provisions, and, worst of all, no sign of track or other clue to guide him.

One day, as he was plodding slowly northward, guided by the stars, his faith in the success of his mission began to flag. Hard continuous toil and a weakening frame had no doubt something to do with his depression. His dogs, also, were in much the same condition with himself,—growing thin, and becoming less lively. Clambering to the top of a hummock, he surveyed the prospect before him. It was not cheering. The faint daylight of noon was spreading over the frozen sea, bringing the tops of the larger bergs out into bold relief against the steel-blue sky, and covering the jumble of lumps and hummocks with a cold grey light.

Despite his resolute purpose the poor man sat down on a lump of ice, buried his face in his hands, and meditated.

“Can it be,” he thought, “that the Great Manitou knows my grief and does not care? Surely that cannot be. I love my child, though she has fled from me. I am a child of the Manitou. Does He not love me? I will trust Him!”

A cold object touched his hand at the moment. It was the nose of the faithful Attim.

Nazinred regarded the touch as a good omen. He rose up and was about to resume the journey in a more hopeful frame of mind when a dark cloud on the horizon arrested his eye. After a long gaze he came to the conclusion that it was land. Two hours later he arrived at Waruskeek, and with a beating heart made straight for the huts, which could be plainly seen on the shore. But terrible disappointment was in store for him. On reaching the Eskimo village he found that it was deserted.

Nevertheless the improved state of mind did not quite forsake him. It was a comfort to have made a discovery of any kind, and was it not possible that, during the brief daylight of the morrow, he might be able to distinguish the tracks made by the party when they left the place and follow them up?

With this idea in his mind he resolved to encamp on the spot, and indulge himself as well as his dogs with a good feed and sleep.

With this purpose in view he collected all the bits of wood he could find, and, with a few lumps of much-decayed blubber, made a rousing fire in one of the huts. The flame cheered his canine friends as well as himself, and filled the place with a ruddy glow. As the hut was sufficiently large, he invited all the dogs to sup with him—an invitation which, it is needless to say, they gladly accepted—and we may add that the humble-minded Attim was not jealous.

The hut of which Nazinred thus took possession was that which belonged to old Mangivik. With his usually observant nature, our Indian looked keenly about him while cooking his pemmican, noting every particular with an intelligent eye. Suddenly his gaze became fixed on a particular corner. Rising slowly, as if afraid of frightening away some living creature, he advanced step by step toward the corner with eyeballs starting nearly out of his head. Then with a light bound he sprang forward, grasped a little piece of cord, and pulled out from beneath a heap of rubbish what appeared to be an old cast-off moccasin. And such indeed it was. It had belonged to Adolay! Nazinred, hastening to the fire, examined it with minute care, and a deep “hoh!” of satisfaction escaped from him; for he knew it well as being one of a pair made by Isquay for her daughter’s little feet.

Need we say that joy filled the Indian’s heart that night, and a feeling of gratitude to that mysterious ever-present yet never visible Being, who—he had come to recognise in his philosophical way—must be the author of all good, though his philosophy failed to tell him who was the author of evil. Nazinred was not by any means the first savage philosopher who has puzzled himself with that question, but it is due to him to add—for it proves him more scientific than many trained philosophers of the present day—that he did not plead his ignorance about his Creator as an excuse for ingratitude, much less as a reason for denying His existence altogether.

But there was a surprise in store for our Indian chief which went far to increase his grateful feelings, as well as to determine his future course. On looking about the deserted village the following day for further evidences of his child having been there, he came upon a post with a piece of birch-bark fastened to it. The post was fixed in the ice close to the shore, where in summer-time the land and sea were wont to meet, and from which point tracks in the snow gave clear indication that the Eskimos had taken their departure. This post with its piece of bark was neither more nor less than a letter, such as unlettered men in all ages have used for holding intercourse with absent friends.

Knowing her father’s love for her, and suspecting that, sooner or later, he would organise a search party—though it never occurred to her that he would be so wild as to undertake the search alone—Adolay had erected the post when the tribe set out for winter quarters, and had fixed the bark letter to it for his guidance.

The writing on the letter, we need hardly say, was figurative, brief, and easily read. It did not give the intelligent father much trouble in the decipherment. At the top was the picture of a hand fairly, if not elegantly, drawn, with one finger pointing. Below it were several figures, the last of which was a girl in unmistakable Indian costume. The figure in front of her was meant to represent Cheenbuk; in advance of him was an Eskimo woman with her tail flowing gracefully behind, while before her was a hazy group of men, women, and children, which represented the tribe on the march. Adolay had obviously the artistic gift in embryo, for there was a decided effort to indicate form and motion, as well as to suggest an idea of perspective, for the woman and the tribal group were drawn much smaller than the foreground figures, and were placed on higher planes. The sketchiness of the group, too, also told of just ideas as to relative degrees of interest in the legend, while the undue prominence of the leading facial feature was an attempt to give that advice which is so forcibly expressed in the well-known phrase, “Follow your nose.” Ten dots underneath, with a group of snow-huts at the end of them, were not so clear at first, but in the end Nazinred made out a sentence, of which the following may be given as a free-and-easy translation: