Without a word Taptuna turned to go.
“You will eat first?” his wife pleaded, for she knew he had taken only a piece of dried meat since morning.
“I will have a drink of broth.”
She hurried to give this to him in a horn cup, saying: “It would be better to eat.”
“The wind rises,” Taptuna replied, and there was no need for him to say more. Pulling up his hood he disappeared through the low door.
Guninana silently stirred the stew, and Noashak, completely subdued by creeping fear, stole close to her mother’s side.
Taptuna crossed to Hitkoak’s. He who had so freely given help with the hunting, could now as freely ask for help. Very soon the neighbor’s dogs were harnessed, and both men set out for the whale carcass. The wind was rising. It howled louder and louder, and drove straight into their faces, making the journey as harsh for them as for Kak and his team, who were plodding back in the same direction, a mile or so out on the ice, but hidden by darkness and whirling snow.
At last Taptuna saw the whale bulking black on the sandspit. They hurried on, watching thin shadows slink from its side at the noise of their approach. It was evident wolves had been there in numbers, all the ground around was trampled with their footsteps freshly sunk in the freshly driven snow, but there were no sled tracks at all; therefore the search party knew Kak must have started away before the wind began to blow so fiercely. He must have lost the trail; he might be anywhere. It would be madness to try to follow him through the stormy night.
“We will need luck to get safely home ourselves,” Hitkoak said, peering at their own drifted tracks; and Taptuna reluctantly agreed. Nothing could be done till to-morrow; so they turned their backs to the gale and were blown along watching every inch of the way; and shouting—shouting—for the boy might be wandering close at hand.
Sadly Kak’s father helped tether the dogs, and struggled to his own house. He knew Guninana would have the lamp burning and her meat pot on to boil; but he little expected the cheery manner with which she greeted him. Her face was so many degrees less worried it seemed almost smiling, and her eager words bubbled up like the fragrant bear stew.