“Ay, a very very bad man,” exclaimed Mrs Mangivik, with a decided nod of her head.
“If he is so very bad,” returned Nootka, “it would be good that he should never come back. Who is it?”
“Gartok,” answered her mother, with the air of one who has mentioned the most hateful thing in creation.
Nootka laughed.
“Surely you are not fond of him!” exclaimed Mangivik, regarding his daughter with a look of anxiety.
“You know that I’m not,” answered the girl, playfully hitting her sire on the back with the flap of her tail.
“Of course not—of course not; you could not be fond of an ugly walrus like him,” said the father, replying to her pleasantry by fondly patting her knee.
Just then a young man was seen advancing from the beach, where he had left his kayak.
“It is Oolalik,” said Mrs Mangivik, shading her eyes with her hand from the sun, which, in all the strength of its meridian splendour, was shining full on her fat face. “He must have made a good hunt, or he would not have come home before the others.”
As she spoke Nootka arose hastily and re-entered the hut, from out of which there issued almost immediately the sounds and the savoury odours of roasting flesh.