It happened late in February, after the sun had begun again to smile at them for a moment above the southern horizon, though his brief daily presence seemed in no wise to abate the cold.
CHAPTER VII
THE GHOST WOLVES OF THE NUNATAK
The “Ankut,” as the Eskimos call him, the wizard, is the bane of life among the peaceful Arctic villagers. He is generally of greater intelligence than they, his craftiness mixed with great greed and ferocity, and he brings strife and misery to the community on which he fastens. Beginning with little tricks and pretended magic, he gains an ascendency over the tribe which often ends in their giving up to him most of their possessions and sometimes their lives. Growing thus in power and audacity, he becomes a veritable tyrant, and his career usually ends in the utter disaster of the people whom he rules, or else they in their extremity overcome their superstitious fears and drive him out. In either case he is apt to become an outlaw, living by brigandage, and working ruin wherever he goes. Among the tribes of northern Siberia the Russians have given him the name of “Shaman,” but in Alaska a Pacific coast term is applied to him when he becomes an outlaw, and he is known to the whalemen as a “highbinder.” Oftentimes he is a half-breed descendant of a white father and Eskimo mother, and seems to inherit the evil cunning of both races. Driven from a community by its utter ruin or by force, the highbinders band together and rove about, preying upon the gentle and superstitious villagers, and spreading disaster and terror wherever they go. They play strange tricks, murder, and rob with no fear of anything except superior force, and carry off boys and girls and sometimes grown men and women into slavery.
VISITING ESKIMOS
There came a week of chinook weather just at the last of February. The Indian tribes a thousand miles to the south have named the warm wind from the Japanese current “chinook,” from the name of a tribe whose habitat was to the southwest of them, the direction whence this wind came, and the name has come to be applied to it the continent over. Down there, no doubt, this chinook melted the snow, and gave the first promise of coming spring. The faint breath of it that reached the far Arctic regions where our friends wintered could do nothing of that sort, but it did bring a period of mild, clear weather, when the dry air seemed positively warm during the few hours of sunshine, while through the long night, under the dancing light of the aurora, the thermometer barely descended to zero. The first night of this warm weather and faintly breathing southern air brought two bears in from the ice-fields, one of which was killed at the trap. The boys, rushing out, saw the other on the ice near by, and Harry killed him by a lucky moonlight shot with the 45-70. Thus two fine pelts were added to their collection, which now numbered ten fine and three less valuable ones, captured by themselves or bought from their Eskimo friends. Joe figured that the value of these in the San Francisco fur market would not be less than a thousand dollars, and they decided that they would keep watch while the south wind lasted and thus lose no chances of getting more.
That night Harry called Joe hastily, and the two, fur-wrapped and rifle in hand, listened into the magnificent whiteness of the moon-flooded night.
“There!” cried Harry. “There it is!”
A low, half-fierce, half-mournful, wailing howl came from the ridge of land above the Eskimo village. It was repeated to the right and left, and came again and again at brief intervals.