"Desolate and lonely moon! Oh, desolate and unhappy moon! . . .
Desolate and unhappy is the heart of Ootah!"
Far away, in her shelter, Annadoah heard the sobbing voice of Ootah. And nearer, in an igloo where the men beat drums and danced, she heard the voice of Maisanguaq laughing evilly. Of late Maisanguaq had gibed her with her desertion; he was bitter toward her. But nothing mattered to Annadoah. She thought of the blond man in the south, and the pleading of Ootah. As she heard his weeping, she shook her head sadly. She beat her breast and muttered over and over again:
"Do the gulls that freeze to death in winter fly in springtime?"
V
"What they heard was, to them all, the Voice of the Great Unknown, . . . He who made the world, created the Eternal Maiden Sukh-eh-nukh, and placed all the stars in the skies . . . Whose voice, far, far away, itself comes as the faintly remembered music of long bygone dreams preceding birth . . . And now, out of the blue-black sky, great globes of swimming liquid fire floated constantly, and dispersing into feathery flakes of opal light, melted softly . . ."
Ootah began work on an igloo for Annadoah. None of the tribesmen had offered to do this for her, and, as only the men develop the architectural skill required to construct a snow shelter, Annadoah, until Ootah's return, was forced to continue to live in her seal-skin tent, where she suffered bitterly from the cold. His back aching, scarcely pausing to rest, Ootah constructed an icy dome of more than usual solidity. This completed, he went many miles, through the darkness, to the south, where, in the shelter of certain rocks, he knew there was much soft moss. Digging through the frozen blanket of ice he secured a quantity, and returning, made with it a soft bed for Annadoah over a tier of stones. This he covered in turn with the soft skin of caribou. Inside the immaculate house of snow he fashioned an interior tent of heavy skins to retain the heat of the oil lamps. Of his own supplies of blubber and walrus meat, which he had secretly buried early in the hunting season and which had thus escaped the rapacity of the white men, he gave more than half to Annadoah. He fixed her lamps with oil, and arranged them solicitously in positions where they would give most heat. He placed supplies in the house, and buried the rest outside so that Annadoah might readily reach them. Meanwhile Annadoah sat alone in her tent, her sad face buried in her hands, "her shadow yearning toward the south." Many of the tribe, emerging from their igloos, had paused to taunt Ootah at his labors.
"A-ha—a-ha!" they laughed. "Thinkest thou that Annadoah will let thee share her igloo when the snow closes in?" They laughed again. Ootah seriously shook his head.
"I would that Annadoah be protected from the storm," he said simply.
"A-ha—ha! No man buildeth a house wherein he may not have shelter; no man layeth a bed of soft moss whereon he doth not expect to lie. Idiot Ootah, as well mayest thou expect the willows to sprout in the long night—Annadoah thinketh naught of thee. Why seekest thou not a sensible maiden?"
"He hath given Annadoah half of his meat and fuel," the women murmured complainingly among themselves.