“You saw a band this morning!” exclaimed Aklak excitedly, for all that morning he had been hunting for caribou and had not seen one.
Tuktu nodded. “Yes,” said she. “And Aklak, I’m glad you didn’t see them. I am glad they have gone where you cannot follow, for I would not like to have a caribou killed here so near to the Valley of the Good Spirit.”
Aklak opened his mouth for a quick retort, then thought better of it. Perhaps after all Tuktu was right. Perhaps it were better that there should be no killing of the deer folk so near the Valley of the Good Spirit. He remembered that not even the wolves, nor the great Brown Bear for whom he was named, ever killed there.
CHAPTER IV
WHITEFOOT GOES ASTRAY
THE two pack-deer with which Kutok had moved up near the Valley of the Good Spirit had been kept fastened, each with a long rawhide line. But Kutok well knew that should they be allowed to go free, they would be likely to join the herds over on the hills above the valley. So they were kept tethered by long lines, and each day were moved to a new grazing ground. Sometimes Kutok attended to this; sometimes Aklak.
It happened one day that both Kutok and Aklak had gone hunting. Tuktu was not at all lonely, for loneliness is something that Eskimo folk know little about. Had she not the two deer for company, to say nothing of the little foxes with whom she played daily? It was nothing new for her to be left alone while her father and brother went hunting. It was Aklak who had moved the deer to new
Aklak goes hunting