At a command from Makuik, Swank was helped to his feet, the spear being extracted from his person by Snak, a slender maiden with a mischievous smile who deftly poulticed the wound with a handful of snow.
If the reader is astounded at the sudden turn of events he can imagine my feeling when my eyes rested on Makuik, mighty hunter of the Kryptok tribe, whom I had last seen twenty years ago when we had fought our way four hundred miles across broken ice from Ki, an uncharted speck north of Iceland, to Archangel. It is a long story. Suffice it to say that I had saved his life twelve times during the trip while he had done nearly as well by me. We had sworn eternal blood-brotherhood and the word of an Eskimo is as good as his bond; better, in fact.
The Kryptok tongue came back to me fluently and I quickly assembled the family group—for such it was—in our dugout where a distribution of A-P and such small presents as I could lay my hands on transformed what had been two hostile camps into one joyous assemblage.
While the women gurgled their satisfaction over their new fly swatters and empty herring boxes, vying with each other in their attempts to ease Swank's pain, Makuik explained the situation.
The women were all his wives, fruits of victorious battle. They were of the Klinka tribe, perfect blondes, as I have noted. The young man was his oldest son by an Iceland mother.
"Too old. I eat. No good wife ... good eat," he explained frankly.
The infant was his youngest. There would be others. His party had been caught at the Pole by an unexpectedly early summer. For protection from the heat they had taken to the cairn, there to await the winter freeze which would make travel comfortable and possible.
"But why did you hide?" I asked.
"Me not know," he said, smiling craftily. "You have trees."
"Trees?" I mused, then burst out laughing. Of course! He referred to my imperial and goatee, which I have worn since my service in the Bodansky Zouaves, and which he had never seen!