What he did understand was that the hunchback considered his own bow a very superior affair, and Johnny’s little more than a toy.
“Well, that puts a long question mark after the probability of my getting out of this land,” Johnny told himself.
“In the meantime,” he thought a moment later, “how about a little stew?”
He made some motions as of eating. The hunchback understood. Soon, like friends of long standing, they were eating out of a single huge wooden bowl.
There was little enough ceremony about this meal. With their fingers they took dripping morsels from the stew and ate them so. Ptarmigan and rabbit meat with some dried roots and seeds of native growth had gone into the stew. Yet Johnny thought he had not tasted a better one. When only the thick broth was left, they took turns at tipping up the bowl and drinking from its rim.
“It’s a curious world,” Johnny told himself, “a very strange and startling world. I wonder what is to become of me now?”
As he looked about the rude shelter he saw no signs of a food store. “My bow is broken,” he told himself. “Without this queer creature’s aid I shall starve.”
At that he forgot his troubles in watching the hunchback. He was beating his breast and repeating over and over, “Omnakok! Omnakok! Omnakok!”
“Perhaps he’s trying to tell me his name,” the boy thought. At this he pointed at the hunchback and said:
“Omnakok.”