About noon they passed a forlorn native village of three or four snow-covered huts, the occupants of which gazed at the unaccustomed sight of white travellers in stolid amazement. They had gone nearly a mile beyond this sole evidence of human occupation to be found in many a weary league when Phil suddenly stopped.
“Look here!” he exclaimed, “what do you two say to going back, making a camp near that village, and having some sort of a Christmas, after all? It doesn’t seem right for white folks to let the day go by without celebrating it somehow.”
As the others promptly agreed to this proposition the sledges were faced about, and a few minutes later the music of Musky’s jingling bells again attracted the wondering natives from their burrows.
Camp was made on a wooded island opposite the village, and while the others were clearing the snow from a space some fifty feet square, and banking it up on the windward side, Phil took his gun and set forth to hunt for a Christmas dinner. An hour later he returned with four arctic hares and a brace of ptarmigan, or Yukon grouse, whose winter plumage was as spotless as the snow itself.
He found Serge and Jalap Coombs concocting a huge plum-duff, while from the brass kettle a savory steam was already issuing. Kurilla and Chitsah had chopped a hole through four feet of ice and were fishing, while a few natives from the village hovered about the outskirts of the camp, watching its strange life with curious interest. They were very shy, and moved away when Phil approached them, seeing which he called Kurilla and bade him tell them that a present would be given to every man, woman, and child who should visit the camp before sunset.
At first they could not comprehend this startling proposition, but after it had been repeated a few times the youngest of them, a mere boy, uttered a joyous shout and started on a run for the village. A few minutes later its entire population, not more than twenty-five in all, including babes in arms, or rather in the hoods of their mother’s parkas, came hurrying over from the mainland filled with eager expectancy.
To every man Phil presented a small piece of tobacco, to every woman a handful of tea, and to every child a biscuit dipped in molasses. With each present he uttered, very distinctly, the word “Christmas.” At length one child—though whether it were a boy or a girl he could not make out, for their fur garments were all exactly alike—looked up with a bashful smile and said [“Kikmuk.”] In a minute all the others had caught the word, and the air rang with shouts of “Kikmuk,” mingled with joyous laughter.
Then they all trooped back to the village, shouting “Kikmuk” as they went; and so long as they live the word will be associated in their minds with happiness and good-will. Three of them, a man and two women, afterwards returned, bringing with them a pair of dainty moccasins, a fox-skin, and an intestine filled with melted fat, which they timidly presented to Phil, Serge, and Jalap Coombs respectively. The last named regarded his gift rather dubiously, but accepted it with a hearty “Kikmuk,” and remarked that it would probably be good for his feet, which it afterwards proved to be.