“Good-night!” exclaimed, Billy, in a comical tone of dismay. “This is getting worse and worse. I was prepared to learn Chinese, but now it seems we’re going to pay a visit to the Eskimos, and I haven’t got my English-Eskimo dictionary with me. I must have left it lying around the house when I left.”
“Eskimo!” exclaimed the darky. “Dat’s de name ob de feller de captain’s got aboard wid him. Dat’s his name, sure enough.”
The boys looked at each other, and then Billy gave a laugh.
“That’s a new name on me,” he said. “I guess you mean he’s got an Eskimo with him, don’t you!”
“Mebbe so. Ah ain’t quite shuah. But he’s a strange-lookin’ critter, anyhow, and furdermo’, it’s a funny kind ob animal he brought aboard wid him jest befo’ we pulled up de anchor,” said Mose.
“What kind of animal?” asked Bobby, quickly. “It wasn’t a walrus, was it?”
“Ah cain’t say about dat,” said the other. “Doan know whut is de name ob de outlandish critter. But jest de same Ah doan like his looks. Floppin’ aroun’ in a tank, wid big teeth an whiskers lak a cat. Ah dares to goodness, it doan seem as dough de Lord could hab made sech a critter, deed it don’t.”
But the boys paid little heed to the negro’s outraged sense of propriety. Many ideas and questions flashed through their minds, and it did not take them long to reach the same conclusion.
“I’ll bet any money it’s old Chief Takyak and his trained walrus!” exclaimed Bobby, excitedly, and the others nodded their heads. “What in the world do you suppose is the big idea?”
“It may be that Takyak’s given up the circus, just as he told us he’d like to do, and is on his way home to the frozen North,” suggested Mouser. “I don’t see where there’s anything about it to get you all excited.”