There is a brief sequel to the story. The next spring an enterprising trader brought up in his ship a three-holed bidarka from Unalaska. When the ship was stopped by the ice, he manned the bidarka, and went on, paddled by two men. He reached the village of death through the narrow leads opening in the pack. Here he found no living thing save the foxes and crows making revel among the bodies of the dead. But he found much store of whalebone and ivory,—so much that he reaped a harvest and was able to visit the capitals of Europe in the style of a bonanza king. Yet, after all, what he got was not the half of the store the ships had accumulated during their summer cruise. What had become of the balance? Let us see.
Harluk would not join Harry and Joe in their exploration of Nunaria. It sufficed for him to point it out from the bluff opposite. They set out alone. Strange sights met their eyes in this village. Traces of former topeks could be found here and there by the white bones, which showed in the grass. Others built of stone had partly fallen in, but still in part retained their shape. From one of these a white fox bounded, and, on looking within, they found a litter of young foxes snuggled within the remnants of some ancient fur garments, among the bones of the man that had worn them. Here an arm bone was stretched out through the tundra grass, as if reaching up for aid. There a white skull grinned at them from the dark corner of a tumbled heap of rocks which had been a home of the ancient village. They found the brass cover of a ship’s binnacle over the ashes of a long-abandoned fire. The dark and mouldy remnants of an uneaten meal were in this strange pot, showing to what base uses the tribes had put the ship’s instruments. Scattered about in inconceivable confusion that time could not obliterate were the useless fragments of the loot of the ships,—rotten ropes, decayed canvas, rusty iron, blocks, and wooden wreckage of all sorts, grown with tundra moss, half buried in waving grass, yet visible still in dismal disorder. There were many spots, very many, where this grass was longer and greener than the rest, and they knew that underneath were the bones of the dead of that dread winter of too much plenty.
In one of the igloos they found a couple of splendid walrus tusks, half hidden in a corner, and in two others single slabs of whalebone, still but little harmed by the weather and the passage of time.
“Queer there isn’t more of this stuff,” said Harry, as he kicked out the slab of whalebone from the dark and grewsome hole.
“I don’t think so,” replied Joe. “Of course the traders and whalemen knew of the place and carried off all they could find. They never got half that was on the ships, though. I imagine the natives never brought it off, but that it was burned or sunk with the vessels.”
“Hum,” said Harry. “But it might pay us to look pretty closely.”
Joe looked at him with a new thought in his eye. “Do you think so?” he said, meditatively.
“Why not?” asked Harry in reply, and they continued their search. Yet they found nothing more of value among the igloos or on the tundra. It was after they had given up the search and were on their way back along the low bluff that they made a further discovery.
“Harluk told about part of the village that lived in what he called a ‘kitekook.’ What sort of an igloo is that?”
“That’s so,” replied Joe; “I had forgotten. Why, ‘kitekook’ is the Point Hope word for cave. We haven’t seen any caves yet. They would be in the bluff, seems to me.”