When he was gone we renewed our ever-returning, perplexing, never-settled question, What shall we do? We could agree on no plans of escape, for all seemed impossible of execution. Yet we did agree in the expediency of opening a communication with the brig. But how to do it was the question.
Our dependence upon the Esquimo growing more humiliatingly absolute every day, pained us. We feared their treachery, of which we already saw some signs. "What shall we do?" was ever repeated.
While thus perplexed, Kalutunah made his appearance. With him were a young hunter, and a woman with a six months' old baby. The little one was wrapped in fox-skin, and thrust into its mother's hood, which hung on her neck behind. It peered out of its hiding-place with a contented and curious expression of face. Its mother had come forty miles, sometimes walking over the hummocky way, with the thermometer thirty-eight degrees below zero, with a liability of encountering terrific storms, and all to see the white men and their igloë. Mother and child arrived in good condition.
We conversed with the chief about our plan of going to Upernavik on sledges, and proposed to buy teams of his people, or hire them to drive us there. He received the proposal with a decided dissent, amounting almost to resentment. His people, he said, would not sell dogs at any price; they had only enough to preserve their own lives.
This we knew to be false. We offered a great price, but he scorned the bribe, and talked with an expression of horror about our plan of passing with sledges over the Frozen Sea, as he called Melville Bay.
While we were urging the sale by him of dogs and sledges he looked quizzically at our emaciated forms and sunken cheeks, and turning to the woman with a significant twinkle in his eye, he sucked in his cheeks. She returned the knowing glance, and sucked in her cheeks. This meant: We shall get all the white men's coveted things without paying when we find them starved and dead. This was a comforting view of the case—for them.
We dropped the plan of going south, and proposed to the chief to carry some of our party to the ship. This he readily assented to, and said at least four sledges should go with Petersen, if to each driver should be given a knife and piece of wood. We closed the bargain gladly, and Petersen was to start in the morning.
Guests and entertainers now sought rest. We gave the mother and child our bed in the corner. This was to us a self-denying act of courtesy, compelled by policy. We had usually given a good distance between us and such lodgers on account of certain specimens of natural history which swarmed upon their bodies, which, though starving, we did not desire. But to put her in a meaner place would be a serious affront, for which we might be obliged to pay dearly.
About midnight voices were heard outside, and soon our young lover, the boy-hunter, entered, accompanied by a widow who was neither young, nor beautiful. The hut was in instant confusion. There was but little more sleep for the night, which was peculiarly hard on Petersen, who was to start in the morning on his long journey.
We had no food with which to treat our guests, which they saw, and so supped upon the provisions which they brought. The widow ate raw young birds, of which she brought a supply saved over from the summer. The Angekok had decided that her husband's spirit had taken temporary residence in a walrus, so she was forbidden that animal. She chewed choice bits of her bird and offered them to us. We tried politely to decline the kindness, but our refusal plainly offended her.