The kayaks were now alongside and the Eskimos were clambering over the schooner’s rails. They were a happy, good-natured-looking lot, with broad yellow faces, flat noses, little slant, beady black eyes, wide mouths, made still wider by a constant grin, and lank, stiff black hair hanging to their shoulders. All looked so much alike that the boys could not understand how any one could tell one from another, and all were identical in the matter of dirtiness.
“Whew, but they are dirty!” exclaimed Jim. “I’ll bet they haven’t ever taken a bath!”
“And aren’t they little!” added Tom. “Why, they’re no bigger than boys.”
But if the two boys were interested in the Eskimos, the latter were simply fascinated with the boys, and gathered about them talking and laughing and jabbering in their own tongue.
Mr. Kemp, Cap’n Pem and the skipper were also busy conversing with two of the Eskimos who appeared to be leaders or chiefs. When the second officer addressed one of them in his own dialect, the filthy little fellow fairly beamed with pleasure.
Presently one of the men approached Tom and held out a greasy, soot-blackened paw. “H’lo!” he exclaimed with a broad grin. “Me Unavik, plenty good whaler feller, betcher life!”
Tom laughed and shook hands gingerly. “Glad to know you, Unavik. My name’s Tom. This is Jim, my cousin. You going along with us?”
Unavik shook hands very cordially with Jim—far too cordially to suit him in fact—and rolled his tiny eyes as he looked over the schooner. “Betcher life!” he announced. “Gimme chew t’bac. How much feller you want?”
“Oh, Mr. Kemp, get us some tobacco,” cried Tom, “this boy wants some.”
“Boy!” exclaimed Mr. Kemp, as he tossed over some plugs of tobacco. “He’s an old man—great-grandfather, I expect.”