“That is so, Nunaga.”
“Can you creep to the sledge?” asked the girl quickly.
“I think I can.”
“Try, then.”
The wizard tried, and found that he could creep on his hands and one knee, dragging the wounded limb on the ice. It gave him excruciating pain, but he was too much of a man to mind that. In a few minutes he was lying at full length on the sledge.
“Now, Tumbler and Pussi,” said Nunaga, “cover him well up with skins, while I go and fetch Kabelaw, but don’t touch his leg.”
She found that Kabelaw could walk slowly, with support, and after much exertion succeeded in getting her also laid out upon the sledge alongside of the wizard. Then Nunaga tied them both firmly down with long walrus-lines. She also attached the children to the sledge with lines round their waists, to prevent their being jolted off. Having thus made things secure, and having cut off some choice portions of the bear for food, she harnessed the dogs, grasped the whip, mounted to the driver’s place, brought the heavy lash down with wonderful effect on the backs of the whole team, and set off at full gallop towards the land where Kablunets were said to dwell.
Fortunately, the ice was smooth most of the way, for jolting was not only injurious to poor Kabelaw, but gave the wizard great additional pain. It also had the effect of bumping Tumbler and Pussi against each other, and sometimes strained their lashings almost to the breaking point.
At night Nunaga selected as comfortable a spot as she could find under the shelter of the Greenland cliffs, and there—after detaching the children, re-dressing Ujarak’s leg, arranging the couch of the semi-conscious Kabelaw, and feeding the hungry dogs—she set up her lamp, and cooked savoury seal and bear cutlets for the whole party. And, not withstanding the prejudices with which fastidious people may receive the information, it is an unquestionable fact that the frying of seal and bear cutlets sends a most delicious influence up the nose, though perhaps it may require intense hunger and an Eskimo’s digestion to enable one to appreciate to the full the value of such food.
These labours ended, Nunaga put the little ones to bed, made the wizard and Kabelaw as comfortable as possible for the night, fastened up the dogs, and, spreading her own couch in the most convenient spot beside them, commenced her well-earned night’s repose. The first night her bed was a flat rock; the second, a patch of sand; but on both occasions the cheery little woman softened the place with a thick bear-skin, and, curling up, covered herself with the soft skin of a reindeer.