“What reward?” demanded the children in one breath.
“One of the caribou tongues that the Kabluna gave us.”
“Goody! Hurrah!”
Caribou tongue is about the nicest thing Eskimos ever get to eat. The white man had saved them and repaid hospitality with a treat—like sending his hostess a box of candy.
Noashak clapped her hands and ran to spread the news, leaving her poor brother in peace. Then Kak said, “Mother, you’re a trump,” or the nearest thing to it in Eskimo, which made Guninana smile all over her face, for even parents like to know their trouble is appreciated.
Fortunately Noashak got so interested in playing with the neighbor girls she stayed over there, and did not return till they all arrived calling from the tunnel:
“We are Hitkoak and Kamik and Alannak and Katak and Noashak and Okak. We are coming in.”
Eskimos have difficult names and a child may be given twenty of them like a foreign prince, but each person only uses one, without anything to indicate the family relationship.
This is the story Kamik told, and everybody agreed it took the prize.
Once upon a time a young man was lying near a pond waiting for some caribou to move away from a very open place where they had been feeding, so that he might creep up on them and shoot them with his bow and arrows. Instead of moving on the caribou lay down. At this the hunter felt terribly disappointed for he knew it meant waiting ever so much longer, and he was tired of waiting. He had just about decided to give up and go and find other caribou in an easier position, when a flock of wild geese flew over and settled on the edge of the pond. They looked pretty fluttering down from the blue sky. The youth watched them idly for a while, then he said to himself: