The frozen fish, which was a large one, sufficed for both breakfast and dinner for the three of them. The boy, a bright little fellow, with the ruddy brown cheeks of an Italian peasant boy, but with the slight squint of eyes and flatness of nose peculiar to these natives of the North, watched every move they made with great interest.
They tried from time to time, to talk to him, but he did not, apparently, know a word of English, and even to the few words of Eskimo they knew he gave no response.
"Oh, Lucile!" Marian exclaimed at last. "Are we in Russia or America?
Who is this boy? Where are his people?"
Lucile did not reply. She was too deeply perplexed for words. But the boy, seeming to have caught something of the purport of Marian's words, tore a splinter from the board wall of the cabin, and, having held it in the blaze of the seal-oil lamp until it was charred, began to draw on the floor.
First he drew a large circle, then a small one. Next, on the large circle he drew lines to represent men, as children often do, a straight line for the back and one each for an arm and a leg, with a circle for a head. When he had drawn many of these, he drew a square within the smaller circle, and within the square drew two characters to represent persons. He next drew, between the two circles, many irregular figures. In the midst of this mass of irregular figures he drew a character for a person.
He made a motion with his hand to indicate that the irregular figures between the circles were in motion. Next he made a motion with his charcoal pencil to indicate that the lone person was moving across the irregular figures between the circles. This motion was halting, as if the person, many times, stumbled and fell. The course of the charcoal at last reached the edge of the square, and there it drew the reclining figure of a person.
Lucile had watched every move intently.
"Do you see what he is telling us?" she cried excitedly. "It is the old native way of telling stories by drawings. He has said, by the two circles, that there are two islands, one large, one small. On the large one are many people—his people—on the small one, a house—the house we are in. Between the two islands there is floeing ice. A figure is attempting to cross the ice. He is that one. He falls many times, but at last reaches the island and this house."
"And," said Marian, "probably the people, many of them, live on this island. They were probably over there when the ice came. They did not dare to attempt to cross. When the floe is steady and solid, as it will be after this storm, then they will cross. And then—" she paused.
"Yes, and then?" said Lucile, huskily.