“But where is the bear-angekok?” asked the bewildered youth.
“I am the bear-angekok.”
“Impossible!” cried Ippegoo.
To this Rooney replied by going back to his bear-skin, spreading it over himself, getting on a stool so as to tower upwards, spreading out his long arms, and saying in his deepest bass tones—
“Now, Ippegoo, do you believe me?”
A gleam of intelligence flashed on the youth’s countenance, and at that moment he became more of a wise man than he had ever before been in his life, for he not only had his eyes opened as to the ease with which some people can be deceived, but had his confidence in the infallibility of his old tyrant completely shaken. He reasoned somewhat thus—
“If Ujarak’s torngak was good and true, it would have told him of the deceit about to be practised on him, and would not have allowed him to submit to disgrace. If it did not care, it was a bad spirit. If it did not know, it was no better than a man, and not worth having—so I don’t want to have one, and am very glad I have escaped so well.”
The poor fellow shrank from adding, “Ujarak must be a deceiver;” but he began to think that Red Rooney might not have been far wrong after all when he called him a fool.
Ippegoo was now warned that he must keep carefully out of the wizard’s way, and tell no one of the deceit that had been practised. He promised most faithfully to tell no one, and then went straight home and told his mother all about it—for it never for a moment occurred to the poor fellow to imagine that he was meant to conceal it from his mother!
Fortunately Kunelik was a wise little woman. She knew how to keep her own counsel, and did not even by nod or look insinuate to any one that she was in possession of a secret.