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White Czar: A Story of a Polar Bear

<h2>CHAPTER IV RETURN OF THE HUNTING PARTY</h2> Tunkine and Tukshu were not much worried about the absence of Eiseeyou until several hours after the vanishing of the arctic day. But when the hours dragged by until ten of them had passed and still he did not overtake them, they became anxious. In the meantime they had camped and built a snow igloo and had made the three heavily loaded komatiks and the dog teams secure. It would be almost hopeless to return and try to find Eiseeyou in the darkness of the arctic night, although these Eskimos have a sort of cat eyesight and can see to hunt and kill game in the darkness where a white man cannot even find his way. So after having fed the dog teams and eaten large quantities of frozen meat themselves, the two Eskimos crawled into their sleeping bags and were soon asleep notwithstanding the fact that their companion was absent. They had no means of knowing what had befallen him. He might even be dead. [Pg 64] But the Eskimos are fatalists. If they had been questioned about their seeming indifference they would have replied, "If he is dead, he is dead. We cannot help it. If God wants him to die, we can't stop it." But very promptly with the first faint indication of the return of the arctic day, Tunkine set off on the back track to find their companion, while Tukshu remained to guard the three komatiks and the dog teams. Tunkine had no difficulty in finding the tracks where Eiseeyou had started towards the coast on his explorations. [Pg 65] The wind had blown but slightly the night before, but even so the tracks were blown in in places and he had to follow partly by instinct, picking up the trail for a few hundred feet and then losing it. At last, after about three hours, he came to the precipitate mountain that Eiseeyou had climbed the day before. Here the trail was very plain as it had been made in a rather icy crust and the wind had kept it clear. So Tunkine followed without difficulty to the great boulder where Eiseeyou had met with his desperate adventure. If Eiseeyou had been astonished by meeting the Czar over the body of the dead musk ox, Tunkine was equally astonished to find both the dead Omingmong and the great white bear lying beside it. His astonishment gave way to a sickening fear when he discovered the tracks of Eiseeyou's deerskin boots beside the carcass of the bear. The great hunter had certainly been there, and yet he was nowhere to be seen. Had the huge bear killed and eaten him? With much excitement, Tunkine examined the snow about. Yes, there were signs of a desperate struggle. Then his foot struck something hard and, kicking away the snow, he stooped and picked up Eiseeyou's rifle which he had neglected to take with him when he crawled under the bear. [Pg 66] While Tunkine was still standing pondering, with a great fear at his heart, the snow under the bear began wriggling about strangely. The Eskimo is rather superstitious and for a moment Tunkine nearly yielded to the impulse to flee. Perhaps this mountain was bewitched. But before he could flee, a hand was thrust through the snow. In it was a large hunting knife which Tunkine had no difficulty in recognizing. With a glad cry he fell upon his knees and began digging frantically to free his friend. After a very few minutes' work Eiseeyou staggered to his feet, stiff, pale, and weak. His right arm hung limp by his side, but that would mend in time and he was still the intrepid hunter with many a good fight against the wind and the cold left in him. Briefly he told the story of his meeting with the White Czar. The Eskimos decided that they could not take anything but the bear's great white coat with them. So Tunkine at once set to work divesting him of it. Eiseeyou helped what he could with his left hand. [Pg 67] In an incredibly short time, the white robe was stripped from the dead bear and rolled up ready for the march back to the waiting komatiks. Although by this time the arctic night was again upon them, yet they set off to find the camp where Tukshu waited patiently for them. About midnight the faithful Tukshu was awakened by a great commotion among the dogs and, crawling hastily from the snow igloo, rifle in hand, he found Tunkine and Eiseeyou in the midst of the yelping pack. Truly it was a happy meeting of these three hardy hunters. Men who without the civilized ways of thinking and with little religion, undergo cheerfully every week of the year desperate hardships and dangers, all for the love of those in the igloo in Eskimo Town. The following night at about the same hour that the two hunters returned to camp, the three sleepers were aroused by a strange noise from the dog teams. Most of the arctic noises they knew at once, but this sound puzzled them for a few minutes. The dog teams seemed to have gone loony, for they were howling intermittently, not in the usual hoarse howl of an Eskimo dog, but in a thin unearthly howl which had a strange bloodcurdling sound. They did not all howl at once, but first one would howl and then another. [Pg 68] The three hunters listened in perfect silence until, during a lull in the howling of the dogs, they distinctly heard another howl. This too was thin and bloodcurdling, sounding more like the shrieking of the wind than like a cry from the throat of an animal. At this sound the three Eskimos reached for their rifles and crawled cautiously out into the open. The sound that they had just heard was the howl of the great white arctic wolf. These dread hunters were abroad and probably trying to lure away some of the dogs that they might devour them. The dogs seemed to recognize in the white wolves their own kin of a few generations back and the weird howling drew them strangely. For several minutes all was quiet and then the distant howling was repeated as before and the dogs answered. The Eskimos soon silenced them with their whips. [Pg 69] After a quarter of an hour Tunkine, whose night eyes were better than those of his companions, pointed out two gleaming yellow eyes watching them from behind a clump of creeping willow. The three raised their rifles and fired in unison, and a white wolf sprang into the air and fell kicking on the snow, while in the distance the sound of scurrying feet could be distinctly heard. This ended their troubles from the white pack, although Tukshu remained up watching for the rest of the night. Meanwhile life went on its humdrum way in Eskimo Town. The men went on short seal hunts while the women busied themselves with making reindeer skin boots. There were the traps also to mind. These often yielded valuable fox skins which the women attended to stretching and curing. They also boiled the fox meat over their strange stone lamps, thus giving variety to their usual diet of raw meat. [Pg 70] But after about ten days, the old men and the women and also the children would be seen often watching from the top of the high hill for some signs of the returning hunting party. If they were anxious, yet they gave no sign. The allotted time had already been consumed and their return was confidently looked for. On the eleventh day after the hunting party had disappeared over the frozen barrens, just as the arctic dusk was about to descend, one of the watchers at the top of the hill described three small specks away on the distant horizon. They were so small that they had no seeming shape, but to the trained eyes of the Eskimo they had both shape and meaning. Without waiting further than to satisfy himself, he ran wildly through Eskimo Town shouting at the entrance of each igloo and hailing every one that he met joyously. In less time almost than it takes to tell, half the inhabitants of Eskimo Town were watching at the top of the hill. The winds were blowing briskly and the thermometer was probably thirty below zero, but they did not mind. Their loved ones were coming home. [Pg 71] The hunters were returning. Fresh omingmong meat was coming on those slowly crawling sledges. No one in the excited crowd was more excited than was Eiseeyou's kooner. This hunting party had been a great strain on her. For eleven long days she had waited, almost alone in the igloo with little Oumauk and his sister, also with the thought that before Eiseeyou should return there might be another snow baby in his igloo. Finally the komatiks came into plain sight and there was no mistaking what the eyes of the old man had seen half an hour before. This was more than Eiseeyou's kooner could bear. Without the slightest warning she went problokto. This is a sudden madness which often seizes the Eskimos. The women are especially liable to this strange derangement. The young woman shrieked and tore at her hair. Finally she rolled in the snow and tried to tear off her garments, although the air was biting cold. [Pg 72] A frightened little group gathered around her, yet could do nothing. But when she finally sprang to her feet and ran away into the gathering darkness, two strong men followed and brought her back by force. This derangement probably arises from the fact that the Eskimos dwell in this strange desolate land, under unearthly conditions. Their lives are hard and have not much joy in them. It is a constant struggle to keep the wolf of hunger from the igloo, so they sometimes go mad. The great silence, the ghastly moonlight, and the long night probably all add to this tendency. Thus it happened that when poor Eiseeyou, nearly spent with the trip, finally struggled to the top of the hill, with his right arm in a sling, the first object that met his eyes was the sight of two men carrying his kooner to the igloo. [Pg 73] Notwithstanding his own discomfort, he was all compassion and tenderness. Once in the igloo where other women ministered to her, the dusky little woman whose life was one long struggle against the cold and hunger revived and was soon herself, resting her head on the well arm of her mighty hunter. But it was many a day before the women and children and the old men tired of talking of these latest achievements of Eiseeyou, the bravest of the brave among the children of the snow. <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 74] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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