The walrus-skins were then raised on the oomiak mast, the edges resting on the bottoms of our boat and the oomiak, placed on both sides. Stones laid along the edges held them in place. Not to be too near our subjects (for they were rather noisy, and smelled pretty strong of rancid fat), we had placed our tent about two hundred feet away from their huts. While the rest had been pitching the tent, Wade and Weymouth had constructed a rough arch of stones, and set our spider in the top of it as we had previously arranged it.
"Ready for the seal!" said Wade.
"They've got seal-blubber about their huts; I saw some of the young ones eating chunks of it," Donovan remarked.
Several of the men had come round where we were at work, and among them the little dark chap who had tried to stab Kit. Wade went along to him, and pointing to his own mouth, and then toward the mouths of the rest of us, said, "Pussay" ("Seal"). But the fellow was still sullen, and stared defiantly.
"Have to discipline him a little, I reckon," Kit muttered.
Again Wade pronounced the word pussay, pointing off toward their huts.
"Na-mick!" exclaimed the Esquimau fractiously. "Na-mick! Ik pee-o nar-kut bok!" swinging his arms. "Ik pee-o askut ammee pussay!"
"Any idea what he said?" Wade asked, turning to Kit.
"No: but it was a refusal; I know by his actions.—Donovan, there's another job for you!"
Don went off a little to one side, and, working up toward him, made a sudden lunge, and had him by the hair in a twinkling. Such a shaking as the poor wretch got! Then, with a quick trip, Donovan laid him flat on his back, and, jerking out his big knife, began strapping it ominously on his boot-leg. Oh, how the terrified savage howled! Raed turned away in disgust. After frightening him nearly into fits with the knife, the stalwart sailor with a twitch threw him across his knee, and applied the flat of the butcher-knife to the seat of his seal-skin trousers with reports that must have been distinctly audible for a quarter of a mile. All the Huskies came rushing up, screaming and gesticulating. The dogs barked. There was a general uproar. After three or four dozen of these emphatic reminders of arbitrary power, Donovan set the shrieking wretch on his feet, and, still holding on to his hair, shouted in his face the word pussay a dozen times in a tone that might have been heard on the neighboring islands. Kit and Wade and Weymouth all fell to shouting the same word; catching the meaning of which, more than a dozen of the Huskies, men and women, ran to their huts, and brought pieces of seal-blubber to the amount of several hundred-weight. The little dark chap disappeared, and we saw no more of him for two days.