Unavik bit off a huge chunk of the plug, passed it to his companions, and nodded his big head. “You betcher!” he mumbled. “Me ol’ feller. Got fif’y year mebbe.”
Then the other Eskimos began talking, telling their names—which the boys could not remember or pronounce—jabbering away with their quaint broken English, and surrounding the boys, so that they were thankful when Captain Skinner broke up the party by inviting them to go ashore.
Accompanied by the flotilla of kayaks, the boat pulled to the beach. To the boys’ surprise they found that there were a number of white people in the settlement; which contained several good buildings, a tiny church, a little mission school, a post office, and a police station.
There was also a low, rambling trading-post, presided over by a red-faced, white-whiskered old Scotchman and this proved the most interesting spot to the boys.
Here was exactly the sort of place they had read about in stories—the low-ceiled, big room with shelves piled with blankets, sacks of meal, axes and knives, guns and ammunition, and great bales of furs. Antlers and heads decorated the walls. There was a huge open hearth, snowshoes and dog sledges were stacked in corners, polar bear skins covered the floor and the stocky Eskimos, and even a few tall, grave-faced Indians, were lounging about or dickering over a trade with the clerk.
Here Captain Edwards secured a number of fur garments as well as other supplies. Then with the boys he strolled about the village. The boys had never stopped to realize that Eskimos did not dwell in ice igloos all the time and they were greatly surprised to find them occupying roughly built huts and much-patched tents of old canvas and skin. They saw drying racks covered with thousands of salmon and other fish which the Eskimo women—even more unkempt and dirty than the men—were cleaning and splitting and suspending on the racks. They visited the church and talked with the good-natured, rotund priest. They looked at the school and watched the bright-eyed, broad-faced Eskimo kiddies striving to master the rudiments of English and arithmetic. They even stopped for a chat with the straight, clean-featured, bronzed-faced, military-looking representative of the law.
“Gosh, I never saw so many dogs!” exclaimed Tom as they walked back toward the boat. “They simply swarm here.”
Captain Edwards laughed and the police officer, who was with them, smiled.
“And I’ll warrant you never saw such pure bred mongrels!” he chuckled.