“So we stood up, and he took hold of my hand in the way that the white traders do, and squeezed it. I will show you how.—Give me your hand, Anteek—no, the other one.”
The boy extended his hand, and Cheenbuk, grasping it, gave it a squeeze that caused the little fellow to yell and throw the assembly into convulsions of laughter, for Eskimos, unlike the sedate Indians, dearly love a practical joke.
From this point Cheenbuk related the rest of his interview with the Indian, and was particularly graphic in his description of the pipe, which he exhibited to them, though he refrained from any reference to its effect upon himself. Then he discoursed of his subsequent exploration of the mainland, and finally came to the point where he met and rescued Rinka.—“But tell me, before I speak more, is Rinka dead?”
“No, she is getting well.”
“That is good,” he continued, in a tone of satisfaction. “Old Uleeta, I doubt not, told you of the fight I had with the Fire-spouters?”
“She did,” cried Anteek, with delight, “and how you gave them sore hearts!”
“H’m! they gave me a sore heart too; but I don’t care now! And they would have roasted me alive, but one of their girls had pity on me, helped me to escape, and came away with me. Adolay is her name—the girl you saw to-day.”
“Ho! ho! hoi-oi?” broke forth the chorus of satisfaction.
“Yes, but for her,” continued Cheenbuk, “I should have been under the ground and my hair would have been fluttering on the dress of a Fire-spouter chief by this time. Now, I have promised this girl that I will get a large party of our young men to go back with her to Whale River and give her back to her father and mother.”
At this there were strong murmurs of dissent, and a man whom we have not yet introduced to the reader lifted up his voice.