Home—Sweet Home—and Smoke, etcetera.

The favouring calm continued until Cheenbuk with his companion arrived at Waruskeek.

It was about mid-day when their canoe turned round the headland and entered the inlet near the head of which lay the Eskimo village.

The boy Anteek happened to be standing on the shore at the time, beside the young girl Nootka. They were looking out to sea, and observed the canoe the moment it turned the point of rocks.

“Hoi-oi!” yelled Anteek with an emphasis that caused the inhabitants of the whole village to leap out of every hut with the celerity of squirrels, and rush to the shore. Here those who had first arrived were eagerly commenting on the approaching visitors.

“A kayak of the Fire-spouters!” cried Anteek, with a look of intense glee, for nothing was so dear to the soul of that volatile youth, as that which suggested danger, except, perhaps, that which involved fun.

“The kayak is indeed that of a Fire-spouter,” said old Mangivik, shaking his grey head, “but I don’t think any Fire-spouter among them would be such a fool as to run his head into our very jaws.”

“I’m not ready to agree with you, old man,” began Gartok.

“No; you’re never ready to agree with any one!” growled Mangivik parenthetically.

“For the Fire-spouters,” continued Gartok, disregarding the growl, “are afraid of nothing. Why should they be when they can spout wounds and death so easily?”

Poor Gartok spoke feelingly, for his wounded leg had reduced his vigour considerably, and he was yet only able to limp about with the aid of a stick, while his lieutenant Ondikik was reduced to skin and bone by the injury to his back.

Suddenly Mangivik became rather excited.

“Woman,” he said earnestly to his wife, who stood beside him, “do you see who steers the kayak? Look, your eyes are better than mine.”

“No. I do not.”

“Look again!” cried Anteek, pushing forward at that moment. “He is not a Fire-spouter. He is one of us! But the one in front is a Fire-spouter woman. Look at the man! Don’t you know him?”

There was an intensity of suppressed fervour in the manner of the boy, and an unwonted glitter in his eyes, which impressed every one who noticed him.

“Yes, he is one of us,” said Mangivik, shading his eyes with one hand, “and he has stolen a Fire-spouting girl with her kayak!”

There was a look of pride in the face of the old man as he spoke, but it was as nothing to the shout of triumph—the shriek of ecstasy—that burst from Anteek as he uttered the word—“Cheenbuk!”

Just then a strong clear voice came rolling over the water to the shore, and a roar of joy burst from the whole assemblage, for there was no mistaking the voice of their comrade and best hunter. The hearts of Nootka and her mother beat with no ordinary flutter as they heard the familiar shout, and as for Anteek, he went into a paroxysm of delight, which he sought to relieve by bounding and yelling till the canoe touched the shore. Then, by a powerful effort, he subdued himself, and turned his energies into a prolonged look of unutterable amazement at Adolay.

Of course the eyes of the entire population were turned in the same direction—for Eskimos do not count it rude to stare—so that the poor girl felt somewhat abashed, and shrank a little behind her stout protector.

Observing the action, Cheenbuk took hold of her arm gently and led her towards his mother.

“This is my mother, Adolay,” he said; “she will take care of you.”

“Your wife?” asked Mrs Mangivik, with an anxious look.

“No, not my wife,” replied the youth, with a laugh. “Take her to our hut, you and Nootka, while I go and speak with the men.—She saved my life, father,” he added, turning to Mangivik, “be good to her.”

On hearing this, Nootka and her mother took the girl affectionately by both hands and led her away.

Cheenbuk meanwhile went up to the big hut, just outside of which was held a meeting of nearly the whole population, to receive an account of his adventures from the man whom they had long ago given up as lost.

“My friends,” he began, surveying the expectant assembly with a grave straightforward look, “when I went by myself to the Whale River, my intention was to hunt around and find out if there were many birds and beasts on lands near to it, and if many men lived or hunted there, for it came into my mind that this little island of Waruskeek is not the best place in the world to live in, for our tribe is continually increasing. I thought that if there were Fire-spouters there already, we must be content with the lands we have got, for it is not right to take what belongs to other men.”

Cheenbuk paused here and looked round, because he knew that he was treading on somewhat new and delicate ground in thus asserting a principle of right; and he was not mistaken, for, while the most of his audience remained silent, several of them expressed dissent.

“Besides,” he continued, “it is not wise to attack men with fire-spouters, which send into their enemies heavy little things like that which was lately picked out of Gartok’s leg; the same as still seems to be sticking in Ondikik’s back.”

“Ho! ho!” exclaimed a number of the men, as if that truth commended itself to their understandings.

“Well, when I got to the river, I found plenty of white-whales at the mouth of it, and great plenty of birds of all kinds, and of deer—a land good for man to dwell in, with many trees that would make sledge-runners, and much dead wood for our fires, and no one living there, nor signs of anybody. Then I thought to myself, Why should we live always among the floes and bergs? The few Fire-spouters whom we have seen and heard of have better food, better homes, better tools of every kind. Why should not we have the same?”

Here the wise Cheenbuk drew from the breast of his seal-skin coat the axe and scalping-knife which Adolay had given him, and held them up.

This was a politic move, for it won over almost the entire audience to the young hunter’s views, while looks of ardent admiration were bestowed on the coveted implements.

“When men find it not easy to get food,” resumed Cheenbuk, in the tone and with the air of a man who has much to say and means to say it, “they change to some place where hunting is better. When fish become scarce, they do not remain still, but go to places where the fishing is better. They always seek for something that is better and better. Is this not true? Is this not wise?”

“Ho! ho!” exclaimed the assembly, assenting.

“Why, then, should not we go to a land where there is much that is far better than we find here, and live as the Fire-spouters live? Did the Great Maker of all things intend that we should remain content with these treeless islands among the ice, when there are lands not very far away where we may find much of all kinds of things that are far better? If it is wise to change our hunting and fishing grounds close at hand, surely it may be wise to change to those that are far away—especially when we know that they are better, and likely to make us more comfortable and happy.”

This suggestion was such a tremendous innovation on ordinary Eskimo ideas, such a radical conception of change and upheaval of age-long habits, that the assembly gazed in awe-struck and silent wonder at the bold young man, much as the members of Parliament of the last century might have gazed if any reckless M.P. had dared to propose universal suffrage or vote by ballot, or to suggest that measures should henceforth be framed in accordance with the Golden Rule.

“After I had travelled a short way inland,” continued Cheenbuk, “I met a Fire-spouter. He was all alone. No one was with him. He pointed his spouter at me, and it clicked but would not spout—I don’t know why. I threw my spear. It went straight—as you know it always does—but the man was quick; he put his head to one side and escaped. Again he pointed his spouter at me, but again it only clicked. Then I rushed upon him and caught hold of it before it could spout. We wrestled—but he was a very strong man, and I could not overcome him—and he could not overcome me. Our breath came short. The sweat poured down our faces and our eyes glared; but when we looked steadily into each other’s eyes we saw that we were both men of peace. We let our bodies go soft, and dropped the spouter on the ground.

“‘Why should we fight?’ said he.

“‘That was just in my thought,’ said I.

“So we stood up, and he took hold of my hand in the way that the white traders do, and squeezed it. I will show you how.—Give me your hand, Anteek—no, the other one.”

The boy extended his hand, and Cheenbuk, grasping it, gave it a squeeze that caused the little fellow to yell and throw the assembly into convulsions ............