Now he had a string tied to her, and this he would pull when he wanted her to come in again. And hardly had she got outside when he began pulling at the string.
“I am only just outside the passage,” she cried. And then she tied the string by which she was held, to a stone, and ran away as fast as she could down hill, and the whale hauled at the stone, thinking it was his wife, and pulled it in. The brothers’ house was just below the hillside where she was, and as soon as she came home, they fled away with her. But at the same moment, the whale came out from the passage way of its house, and rolled down into the sea. The umiak dashed off, but it seemed as if it were standing still, so swiftly did the whale overhaul it. And when the whale had nearly reached them, the brothers said to their sister:
“Throw out your hairband.”
And hardly had she thrown it out when the sea foamed up, and the whale stopped. Then it went on after them again, and when it came up just behind the boat, the brothers said: “Throw out one of your mittens.”
And she threw it out, and the sea foamed up, and the whale pounced down on it. And then she threw out the inner lining of one of her mittens, and then her outer frock and then her inner coat, and now they were close to land, but the whale was almost upon them. Then the brothers cried:
“Throw out your breeches!”
And at the same moment the sea was lashed into foam, but the umiak had reached the land. And the whale tried to follow, but was cast up on the shore as a white and sun-bleached bone of a whale.
The Two Little Outcasts
There were two little boys and they had no father and no mother, and they went out every day hunting ptarmigan, and they had never any weapons save a bow. And when they had been out hunting ptarmigan, the men of that place were always very eager to take their catch.