With this idea in his mind he resolved to encamp on the spot, and indulge himself as well as his dogs with a good feed and sleep.
With this purpose in view he collected all the bits of wood he could find, and, with a few lumps of much-decayed blubber, made a rousing fire in one of the huts. The flame cheered his canine friends as well as himself, and filled the place with a ruddy glow. As the hut was sufficiently large, he invited all the dogs to sup with him—an invitation which, it is needless to say, they gladly accepted—and we may add that the humble-minded Attim was not jealous.
The hut of which Nazinred thus took possession was that which belonged to old Mangivik. With his usually observant nature, our Indian looked keenly about him while cooking his pemmican, noting every particular with an intelligent eye. Suddenly his gaze became fixed on a particular corner. Rising slowly, as if afraid of frightening away some living creature, he advanced step by step toward the corner with eyeballs starting nearly out of his head. Then with a light bound he sprang forward, grasped a little piece of cord, and pulled out from beneath a heap of rubbish what appeared to be an old cast-off moccasin. And such indeed it was. It had belonged to Adolay! Nazinred, hastening to the fire, examined it with minute care, and a deep “hoh!” of satisfaction escaped from him; for he knew it well as being one of a pair made by Isquay for her daughter’s little feet.
Need we say that joy filled the Indian’s heart that night, and a feeling of gratitude to that mysterious ever-present yet never visible Being, who—he had come to recognise in his philosophical way—must be the author of all good, though his philosophy failed to tell him who was the author of evil. Nazinred was not by any means the first savage philosopher who has puzzled himself with that question, but it is due to him to add—for it proves him more scientific than many trained philosophers of the present day—that he did not plead his ignorance about his Creator as an excuse for ingratitude, much less as a reason for denying His existence altogether.
But there was a surprise in store for our Indian chief which went far to increase his grateful feelings, as well as to determine his future course. On looking about the deserted village the following day for further evidences of his child having been there, he came upon a post with a piece of birch-bark fastened to it. The post was fixed in the ice close to the shore, where in summer-time the land and sea were wont to meet, and from which point tracks in the snow gave clear indication that the Eskimos had taken their departure. This post with its piece of bark was neither more nor less than a letter, such as unlettered men in all ages have used for holding intercourse with absent friends.
Knowing her father’s love for her, and suspecting that, sooner or later, he would organise a search party—though it never occurred to her that he would be so wild as to undertake the search alone—Adolay had erected the post when the tribe set out for winter quarters, and had fixed the bark letter to it for his guidance.
The writing on the letter, we need hardly say, was figurative, brief, and easily read. It did not give the intelligent father much trouble in the decipherment. At the top was the picture of a hand fairly, if not elegantly, drawn, with one finger pointing. Below it were several figures, the last of which was a girl in unmistakable Indian costume. The figure in front of her was meant to represent Cheenbuk; in advance of him was an Eskimo woman with her tail flowing gracefully behind, while before her was a hazy group of men, women, and children, which represented the tribe on the march. Adolay had obviously the artistic gift in embryo, for there was a decided effort to indicate form and motion, as well as to suggest an idea of perspective, for the woman and the tribal group were drawn much smaller than the foreground figures, and were placed on higher planes. The sketchiness of the group, too, also told of just ideas as to relative degrees of interest in the legend, while the undue prominence of the leading facial feature was an attempt to give that advice which is so forcibly expressed in the well-known phrase, “Follow your nose.” Ten dots underneath, with a group of snow-huts at the end of them, were not so clear at first, but in the end Nazinred made out a sentence, of which the following may be given as a free-and-easy translation:
“My hand points the direction in which we have gone. Your loving daughter is following the man who ran away with her. The Eskimo women and men, and dogs, and all the rest of them, are marching before us. Follow me for ten days, and you will come to the snow-huts where we are to winter.”
Could anything be plainer? The happy father thought not. He took an extra meal. His team gave themselves an extra feed of bits of old blubber picked up in the camp, and while daylight was still engaged in its brave though hopeless struggle with the Arctic night, he tied up his sledge, thrust the old moccasin into his bosom, gave Attim the order to advance, and set off with revived strength and hope on his now hopeful journey.