“Hau! There must be a strong man among us!”
“Who can it be that is so strong?”
“Here is the mighty one, without a doubt,” said Umerdlugtoq, pointing to little Kâgssagssuk. But this he said only in mockery.
And a little time after this, the people about the village began to call out that three bears were in sight—exactly as the giant had said. Kâgssagssuk was inside, drying his boots. And while all the others were shouting eagerly about the place, he said humbly:
“If only I could borrow a pair of indoor boots from some one.”
And at last, as he could get no others, he was obliged to take his grandmother’s boots and put them on.
Then he went out, and ran off over the hard-trodden snow outside the houses, treading with such force that it seemed as if the footmarks were made in soft snow. And thus he went off to meet the bears.
“Hau! Look at Kâgssagssuk. Did you ever see....”
“What is come to Kâgssagssuk; what can it be?”
Umerdlugtoq was greatly excited, and so astonished that his eyes would not leave the boy. But little Kâgssagssuk grasped the biggest of the bears—a mother with two half-grown cubs—grasped that bear with his naked fists, and wrung its neck, so that it fell down dead. Then he took those cubs by the back of the neck and hammered their skulls together until they too were dead.