Tuktu watching Aklak train a young deer
of us. They will see me training the deer, but they will not suspect that they are being trained for a special purpose. Let us go out now and pick out those to be trained.”
Now, Aklak was a splendid judge of deer. He knew all the fine points, for he had been well taught by his father. So it was that often when Tuktu would point out what seemed to her a particularly fine animal, Aklak would shake his head and would point out to her that it was not as fine as it seemed. There would be some little blemish. Now and then he would find a deer that suited him. Sometimes the deer would be wild and difficult to approach. Then Tuktu would help. Sometimes the deer would struggle after it had been roped, and every time that Aklak came near would strike with its forefeet, as only a reindeer can. Then Tuktu would pet it and soothe it, until in a few days it would be gentle and easy to handle.
At first, Aklak would look only among his father’s deer. He wanted those eight deer to be from his father’s herd. And so he would not look at some of the finest deer of the great herd, which his father did not own, but of which he had charge. That was the selfishness in Aklak. But when Tuktu refused to have anything to do with these deer, because there were finer ones in the great herd, he admitted after a while that she was right. He didn’t want to admit it, but he was honest. He knew that Tuktu was right. He knew that the Good Spirit would not choose less than the best.
All that winter Aklak worked with his eight deer. Every day he drove one or another of them. The other herders began to take notice, and some of them became envious. But he was the son of Kutok, the chief herder, and there was nothing they could do about it. As for Kutok, he became very proud. “Said I not that Aklak would one day become a great herder?” he would demand, as he watched the boy driving a deer as none of the other herders could drive it.
And all that winter Tuktu and Aklak kept their secret.