Kak took the speech seriously, straightened up, threw out his chest, and said in a patronizing tone: “No, and I guess he never will be.”
The whole family burst into roars of laughter.
When the boy found they were making fun of him he did not take it half so well as Okak. He felt cheap and comic and knew he ought to laugh; but he was angry instead of amused, and that made him feel mean; then he was angrier still, so he went out and played with the dogs.
The travelers turned in right away, and when they waked up, after a long sleep, all the things they had laid out under the fierce sun were bone-dry. Noashak, too, seemed none the worse for her rough journey. She looked like a morning flower; and seeing these good signs, Taptuna said they would continue at once.
“Hurrah!”
Kak cut a caper, jumped over Sapsuk’s back and then over Pikalu’s, turned a handspring and mired down on the oozy ground. Despite the pessimist he was all eagerness to explore that vast inland rolling southward as far as the eye could see. Kommana’s horror of the prairie found no echo in the boy’s soul. He was far too hardy to be upset by the promise of a few difficulties. Poof! Mosquitoes and flies raged everywhere at this time of year, and it was hot all over. Taptuna’s family had so rarely suffered for food that Kak only half believed in hunger, while wholly yielding to the lure of the unknown. This country they were about to cross and invade held two great, romantic possibilities—grizzly bears and Indians! Both thrilled him with terror and anticipation.
Since seeing Omialik kill the polar foe with his magic gun, Kak had lost some of his respect for that deadly enemy. Still, bears are bears, and everybody in the Arctic circle believes that a grizzly, when angered, is the fiercest of this powerful family. Kak yearned and dreaded to meet one of these big, brown bears. He could shut his eyes and see the huge beast rearing up before him, twice his own height, tawny-colored, shaggy, long-nosed, all teeth and claws and matted hair; could see himself tackling the brute single-handed, plunging his knife in under the foreleg.... Hunters do tackle them single-handed with a knife; but Kak had once met a man whose eye had been clawed out by a grizzly, and so at that point the vision usually faded in a wild surge of funk.
Indians were not so definite to the boy’s imagination. They fascinated him more while frightening him quite as much. Eskimos are the natural enemies of all Indians. For centuries the Mackenzie River Eskimos maintained an aggressive attitude toward their red-skinned neighbors; but with Kak’s people fear was divided half and half. The two races rarely encountered each other. When the snow had disappeared, while the lakes were still frozen, it was the Indians’ custom to cross on the ice and make their yearly trading trip to the Hudson’s Bay post on Great Bear Lake. So when the Eskimos arrived at Dease River most of the Slavey Indians were three hundred miles away. Occasionally, however, stray bands ran across each other with dire results. Stories of Indians attacking tents in which Eskimos slept and killing them all had been part of Kak’s education. The possibility of seeing Indians made the second thrill of this amazing summer; while over all hung the certainty of meeting Omialik again and learning a whole lot more about Kabluna. At marching orders the boy went leaping and hurrahing around like a mad thing; and supplied a pair of willing hands when it came to packing up.
Their entire store of dried meat was put into saddlebags slung over the dogs’ backs; and the tent poles were tied to the harness so that their long ends dragged behind. This seems an awkward kind of load for poor Sapsuk and Pikalu, but nobody expected to go more than about two miles an hour, so it was easy for them to keep up with the party. Guninana carried her cooking pots very carefully rolled in bedding skins, her ulu (a little knife, like a chopping knife, for preparing food) and her sewing kit. Taptuna and Okak carried their bows and arrows, their tool bags, which were heavy, and some fragments of copper that might come in handy for making new arrows to replace those lost in the hunt. Kak had his bow and arrows, and to show what a man he was, insisted on carrying the tent besides. They all wore their oldest clothes. Old clothes are much the most comfortable at this time of year, for the hair being rubbed off makes them cooler; also if they are gone into holes in places, as Kak’s were, little breezes can trickle in and cool the skin; when the thermometer stands at about a hundred degrees, cooling winds are welcome. Unfortunately though, sunshine and hot weather bring insects. Along with the little breezes mosquitoes come, “biz, biz, biz,” and settle on the holes and bite like fury.
“Ouch!” Kak would cry, clapping his hand on elbow or knee, and desperately fanning the host away.