Dick was puzzled at first, then spoke: “Sandy, I have an idea this is more of the white Eskimo’s work. He could have got away pretty quietly if he was a good hand with dogs, as I suppose he is. I’m certain now that Fred Mistak and the ‘white Eskimo’ are the same person. We’ll find out.”
“In the meantime, let’s eat,” said Sandy.
Dick discovered that he had as keen an appetite as Sandy when in their cozy igloo he found a tasty meal prepared by Toma. Both boys were too tired to join the Eskimos, who in spite of the theft of the dog team, set out to skin and cut up the polar bears, leaving the camp deserted except for the three boys. Dick and Sandy were later to learn that not even a funeral could stand between an Eskimo and his hunting. When there was meat to be had the natives dropped everything until the last bit of it was safely stored away. For wild meat was their only staple diet—all that kept them from starving to death, and during the real winter they could hunt but little.
The boys had finished their supper and were relating to Toma, in detail, their narrow escape from the mad polar bear, when the barking dogs and the sound of familiar voices interrupted them. They tumbled out of the igloo to find Corporal McCarthy and Constable Sloan. The policemen had just returned from a long, fruitless trek eastward, and the Corporal had frosted his feet.
What the boys had to say about the stolen dog team was of especial interest to the officers.
“Without a doubt Fred Mistak is hiding near here,” commented Corporal McCarthy, when comfortably seated in the boys’ igloo, with his bare feet in a pan of snow to draw out the frost. “So far, I’ll have to admit we’ve done little better than nothing, but we’ll hope for better luck tomorrow——” Corporal McCarthy did not finish his sentence.
A hoarse cry at the entrance of the igloo was the interruption, and into their midst tumbled an Eskimo, gibbering in a frightful manner, and groveling on the floor as if he had lost his mind.
In the jumble of native words was audible the frequent ejaculation: “Angekok! Angekok!”
“Him one them three go after fella what steal dog team!” Toma suddenly exclaimed.
“What!” cried Corporal McCarthy. “Sloan,” he wheeled toward the Constable, “go out and see if the other two have returned alright.”