Omialik sat silent a long time considering, so long that Jimmie commenced to look pretty mad. Indians are terribly touchy about their dignity and take offense at many silly little trifles which we would not mind at all. When the Kabluna noticed the stranger was getting annoyed he began to talk to Kak, making it seem as if they consulted.
“Do you think your father and mother and Okak would be willing to meet these men?” he asked.
“Meet them—where—how?” Kak was flabbergasted by the suggestion.
“In the village—if we lead them there?”
The boy answered instantly: “Okak will shoot at sight.”
“Not if I warn him first. Not if they come as guests, surely?”
To talk about receiving Indians as guests amazed the Eskimo; but he understood from Omialik’s grave manner that the discussion was serious, that he was being asked to speak for his whole tribe on an important issue, so he frowned deeply and sat quiet thinking, trying to behave as much like the Kabluna as he could.
“Will they agree to meet them?” Omialik gently pressed his question.
The boy being all mixed up in his mind spoke exactly as he felt: “After they have met them they will agree to meet them but not before. No—that sounds rubbish! I mean these Indians aren’t a bit like what we think they are like. They don’t act like it, and they don’t look like it—but of course they may be it all the time underneath.”
“What do you think they are like?” Omialik asked curiously.