His loving mother was quite worried. She put her son to bed at once, and sent for the medicine-man. She got a present of deer skins ready to give him as soon as the great person should appear.
After he had accepted the deer skins the doctor put on a horrible black mask; then he began to move about the tent, waving his arms from side to side, and repeating a charm. Do you understand what he was trying to do? He thought a bad spirit had got hold of Etu; he believed the hideous mask and the charm of certain words would drive it out.
After awhile he went away, and Etu was alone again with his own people. His fever lasted for several days, but at length it left him, and he grew well and strong once more. He believed the great medicine-man had healed him; but we think Mother Nature worked her own cure through rest in his own warm bed. The poor boy was tired out, and had caught a hard cold watching on the plains.
As soon as he was strong his father said: "The trading season has come, for it is already two moons since we made our camp. We must journey southward to the great river. We shall see our friends from the western coast; they must have already started to meet us. Let us get our furs, seal oil, and walrus tusks together to sell to them, for, no doubt, they will have many things to give us in exchange. We greatly need some copper kettles and tobacco. Oh, yes, let us get ready as soon as possible."
Etu was delighted to hear these words. Now would come the merriest time. He would have a long journey, and he dearly liked a change. But that was not all. He would see new people, and hear of new things; he would have a chance to trade, and that would be great sport in itself.
Besides all these things, he knew his people would spend at least ten days with their friends from the west; and there would be much dancing and singing and story-telling, both day and night. Hurrah, then, for this summer journey!
You may be sure Etu did his best in packing and making ready. In another twenty-four hours there was no sign left of this Eskimo village. The dogs, the sledges, and the people were all gone. Nothing was left except a few articles used in housekeeping, and these were buried in an underground storehouse.
If you wish to hear more about Etu, and of his yearly visit south; if you care to hear about the big whale he helped to kill last winter, and of his adventure with a walrus, you must write and ask him about these things.