The little girl seized Omialik’s hand and jumped around and rubbed on him in quite her old, bothersome manner.
“Don’t act so much like a chipmunk. Come. Tell us your story!” He laughed at her mauling, and captured both small hands in one large glove. “What happened after you ran away to play with the hares and marmots?”
“I wanted to go right off where Kak would have a lot of trouble finding me, because he was mean. You were mean, Kak! I ran and ran till I was so tired I lay down—maybe I had a little nap. When I felt rested and thought you had been looking for me long enough I tried to go home; but the sun hid behind clouds and I didn’t know which way was home, and still I kept on going. Then numbers of caribou came feeding near by—more and more and more. It began to grow dark and I cried. That didn’t stop the darkness a bit; so by and by I ceased crying and looked around for a bed. There was a nice, low island of rock with three spruce trees growing on it, and smooth ground all covered with moss, and I thought: ‘That will make me a fine house.’ With such a lot of animals around I wanted a safe place. I climbed up. It was almost dark and the night grew blacker and blacker for a while; but presently the clouds blew away, and the stars shone and the moon. There was an awful smell and the sound of many animals running. I could see antlers like trees rushing past, and the wolves howled, and——”
“You were scared and howled with them.”
“Yes, I did,” the child answered boldly. “I cried myself to sleep. When I woke up it was bright day and the whole world was covered with caribou—such lots and lots of caribou, all going in the same direction! There were wolves among them and I was frightened to go into the herd, so I sat still and waited. I was on the island with an ocean of deer rushing by. They kept me on the island. I had nothing to eat but berries, and I cried and hoped you would soon come to find me.”
It was so. That day the child had lain alone on the dry, vibrating ground under low clouds, and watched the cold, blue evening fall; while those gray, shadowy, moving legs and tossing, antlered heads came on, and on, and on. The thud, thud of running roofs made a strange lullaby. The wind had risen to a sighing moan, and now that night drew in wolves, racing with the herd, howled dismally.
All through the darkness deer continued trotting by, and to the tramp and tremble of their small, innumerable feet Noashak waked a second time.
She felt very lonely and sad as well as hungry, and scarcely thought it worth while to sit up and look at those interminable creatures. Imagine her joy, then, on finding one edge of her rock quite free—luckily for her the edge toward home. This was because the breeze had shifted, making the caribou, which usually travel into the wind, alter their course. Gradually, while the captive slept, the columns had bent westward till the whole, vast herd was swinging down on the far side of her island. The instant she took it in Noashak jumped up and hurried out of prison.
“I’ll never, never again be so naughty as to run away!” the child promised, shaking her head violently; but her seriousness lasted only five seconds.
“What do you think?” she cried, hopping on one foot. “Okak said Indians had carried me off. I wish they had! Then I could have seen their lodges, and I wouldn’t be back till father saved me, and killed Jimmie Muskrat; and everybody would still be scared.”