“Oh, Kanneyok,” Cleaver called in the Innuit tongue. “I come bearing a message. Listen well, O you people of the ice.”
Three tousled heads were elevated for a moment above the skins; a thin arm waved to signify that the message had been heard.
“Thus and thus,” the sergeant called in Innuit through his handkerchief. “There must be red meat or you will all pass to the shadow hills. Therefore, because the great white king does not forget his people, I and the fat one go to hunt walrus. With the new sun we bring meat. I have spoken.”
Faint clucking sounded when the Eskimos passed this satisfying information along. A chorus of grunts.
“That’s the way to shoot it to ’em,” Scarth’s nasal tones came suddenly from the doorway. “You police sure knows your onions. Fall for this white king stuff, don’t they? But, by cripes, you’d better make good, Cleaver, or the Esks’ll give you the hee-haw from Alaska to Greenland—”
“Anumlatciaq tamna oomiak!” a laughing voice broke in on Scarth in the Eskimo tongue.
There followed a crisp oath from the trader, the sound of a blow, and a yelp from Uluk.
“Anumlatciaq tamna oomiak! The skin boat it never goes out!”
Cleaver translated the halfbreed’s phrase slowly, subconsciously aware that the sick Eskimos had heard and understood the words. Several of them were sitting upright, bony faces staring over at the door flap.
“By God, I’ve stood all I’m going to take from you and that grinning breed of yours!” the Mountie roared, gripped by long suppressed passion.