“We want spear-handles,” said Gartok, “and wood for our kayak-frames, and deer for food, as well as birds and rabbit-skins for our underclothing.”
“That is true,” remarked one of the elderly men; “we want all these things, and a great many more things, but we don’t want fighting. There is no use in that.”
“Ho! ho!” exclaimed several voices in approval.
“But we do want fighting,” retorted Gartok firmly; “we want the pretty coloured things that the Fire-spouters sew on their clothes and shoes; also the iron things they have for cutting wood; and we want the spouters, which will make us more than a match for them in war; and we can’t get all these things without fighting.”
“Do without them, then,” observed Mangivik sharply; “why should we want things that we never had, and don’t need? Listen to me, young men—for I see by your looks that some of you would like a little fighting,—even if we had the spouting things, we could not make them spout.”
“That is a lie!” exclaimed Gartok, with the simple straightforwardness peculiar to the uncivilised. “Once I met one of the Fire-spouters when I was out hunting at the Whale River. He was alone, and friendly. I asked him to show me his spouter. He did so, but told me to be very careful, for sometimes it spouted of its own accord. He showed me the way to make it spout—by touching a little thing under it. There was a little bird on a bush close by. ‘Point at that,’ he said. I pointed. ‘Now,’ said he, ‘look along the spouter with one eye.’ I put one end of it against my cheek and tried to look, but by accident I touched the little thing, and it spouted too soon! I never saw the little bird again; but I saw many stars, though it was broad daylight at the time.”
“Ho! hoo!” exclaimed several of the younger men, who listened to this narration with intense eagerness.
“Yes,” continued Gartok, who had the gift of what is called “the gab,” and was fond of exercising it,—“yes; it knocked me flat on my back—”
“Was it alive, then?” asked Anteek, who mingled that day with the men as an equal, in consequence of his having slain a walrus single-handed.
“No, it was not quite, but it was very nearly alive.—Well, when I fell the man laughed. You know his people are not used to laugh. They are very grave, but this one laughed till I became angry, and I would have fought with him, but—”