It was a strange world they looked upon when, after three days, they ventured out once more. The snow was piled in ridges. Ten, fifteen, twenty feet high, these ridges extended down the hillsides and along the tundra. Through one of these, they tunneled to Mine No. 2, making an enclosed path to the mine from the cabin.
“From now on, let her blow,” laughed Johnny when the tunnel was finished; “our work will go on just the same.”
When the men were all back at work, Johnny thought once more of the big yellow cat and the little yellow men. The storm had wiped out every trace of his struggle with the men and every track of the cat. But the native village? Might he not discover some trace of his assailants there? He resolved to visit the village. Since his men were all employed, he would go alone.
An exclamation of surprise escaped his lips as he rounded the point from which the rows of dome-like igloos could be seen. Where there had been nineteen or twenty homes, there were now sixty or seventy. What could this mean? Could it be that the men who had attacked him but a few days before were among these new arrivals? At first, he was tempted to turn back. But then there came the reflection that Nepossok, the old chief who made this his permanent home, was friendly to him. There would be little chance of treachery in the broad light of day.
He hurried on and walked down the snow-packed streets of a northern nomad village.
Reaching the old chief’s tent, he threw back the flaps and entered. He was soon seated on the sleeping platform of the large igloo, with the chief sitting solemnly before him and his half naked children romping in one corner.
“Il-a-hoite-Chukche. Too many! Too many,” grumbled the old man.
Johnny waited for him to go on.
Twisting the string of his muckluck (skin boot), the old man continued: “What you think? Want’a dance and sing all a times these Chukche. No want’a hunt. No want’a fish. Quick come no cow-cow (no food). Quick starve. What you think?”