"Ha! Ha!" he laughed. "Methinks that is the way to treat a woman!" Then with swollen-up gusto he told them all about it. Tiring of being alone he determined to carry off Ahningnetty. "A woman's mind is as the wind—it constantly changeth," he said. "Women should be driven as the dogs." Ahningnetty, still weeping, still protesting, came to the door. Attalaq turned fiercely upon her and struck her in the face. Then he laughed again. The girl screamed.
"Well," he said, turning to her. "I carried thee here—if thou wouldst return thou canst walk back. Eh?" The girl cowered away, but on her face there was the semblance of a pleased expression. The other women regarded her with a tinge of envy.
"'Tis not often in these days a lover careth sufficiently to carry a maid away," said an aged crone.
"In the days of old there were men like Attalaq," said a younger woman, admiringly.
"Where is Papik?" one asked. He was not to be seen.
"Dost thou not wish to return to thy father?" Annadoah asked
Ahningnetty, approaching her.
The girl shook her head. Much as she had protested, she was unquestionably pleased by the forcible abduction.
One of the gossips, desiring to impart the unpleasant news to Papik, had gone to his house.
"Papik sits alone," she called, on her return. "And when I told him
Ahningnetty hath been carried away by Attalaq, he replied, ''Tis well!
'Tis well!' And then he showed me his hands—they were frozen—frozen!
Verily, he would now be a sorry husband to provide for a wife."
"Papik's fingers frozen!" took up the others. "Unhappy Papik."