After supper, as a matter of course, Nazinred looked round with an air of benign satisfaction on his fine face.
“Is my fire-bag behind you, Adolay?” he asked in a low voice.
Doocheek was present and heard the question, but of course did not understand it, as it was put in the Dogrib tongue. The search, however, which immediately began induced him to retire promptly and absent himself from home for the time being.
“It is not here, father.”
A more careful search was made, then a most careful one, but no fire-bag was to be found.
“Perhaps Nootka took it to her sleeping-place to keep it safe,” suggested old Mangivik.
No; Nootka had seen nothing of it, and Nootka was not a little annoyed when, in spite of her assertion, a search was made in her boudoir, and not a little triumphant when the search proved fruitless.
“Surely no one has taken it away,” said Cheenbuk, looking round with an expression that would have sunk Doocheek through the snow into the earth if he had been there.
“If any one has taken it away,” said Aglootook, with a profundity of meaning in his tone that was meant to paralyse the guilty, and serve as a permanent caution to the innocent, “something awful will happen. I don’t say what, but something; so it will be as well to confess, for I’m sure to find it out—if not soon, then in a long time.”
For some moments after this there was dead silence, but nobody confessed, and they all looked at each other as if they expected some one to go off like a cannon shot through the roof suddenly, and were somewhat disappointed that no one did.