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Page 30
"Annadoah!" Ootah's wail of hurt recalled her.
Her eyes sought the igloo wonderingly.
"Thou?" she repeated, dully. "Yea, it is cold here. I am hungry . . .
Are there not _ahmingmah_ in the mountains, Ootah? Didst thou not tell
me there were _ahmingmah_ in the mountains . . . why do not the men of
the tribe seek the musk oxen in the mountains?"
With a sudden start Ootah remembered having told Annadoah of the herd
he had found in the inland valley--it was strange, he thought, he had
not remembered the herd before. And it was stranger still that now she
should remind him. But the improbability of ever reaching the game,
the obvious impossibility of such a journey at this time of winter, had
prevented any such suggestion.
"Many musk oxen are there in the mountains," he said, soothing her
hands. She drew them away. "And thou art hungry . . ."
"I am hungry," she replied, faintly.
After he had given her the last bit of meat he left her igloo. Above
him the stars burned, the air was clear and still. Not a thing moved,
not a sound was heard--the earth was gripped in that unrelenting spell
of wintry silence. Above the imprisoned sea the January moon was
rising and for ten sleeps--ten twenty-four hour days--it would circle
about the horizon of the entire sky. Already the sky above the sea was
bright as a frosted globe of glass, and pearly fingers of light were
stealing upward over the interior mountains.
"She is hungry," Ootah repeated over and over again. "And the tribe
starves . . . and there may be _ahmingmah_ in the mountains." Behind
him they loomed, gigantic and precipitous. That such a journey meant
almost certain death he knew; but that did not deter him in the resolve
to essay a feat no native had ever dared in many hundreds of years.
The face of Sipsu, the _angakoq_, as I have said, resembled dried and
wrinkled leather. He had been an old man when the eldest of the tribe
were children. He had seen hard times, he had suffered from starvation
during many winters; yet never even in his experience had the lashes of
_ookiah_ struck so blastingly upon the tribe. Yea, they had even lost
their fear of the _tornarssuit_ and no longer brought propitiatory
offerings of blubber to him. Yet being wise with age, early in the
summer he had buried sufficient supplies beneath the floor of his house
to keep him from starving. He scowled maliciously as he heard someone
creeping through the underground entrance of his igloo. Presently the
cadaverous face of Maisanguaq appeared.
The interior was heavy with the stench of oil. The room hung with soot
from the lamp. A thin spiral thread of black smoke rose from the
taper. In the dim light the leering face of Sipsu appeared like the
face of the great demon himself. His small half-closed eyes blazed
through their slits.
"The spirits are wrathful. The tribe is forgetful. What wilt thou
have?"
Maisanguaq, with unconcealed hesitation, placed a bit of blubber before
the magician.
"The last I have," he mumbled. Sipsu seized it avidly.
"Ootah goeth to the mountains," Maisanguaq said, panting for breath.
The old man sneered bitterly:
"He cannot brave the spirits. No man can live in the mountains. The
breath of the spirits is death."
"Yea, he goeth. He says that he knows where the _ahmingmah_ abound.
The air is still; the moon rises for ten sleeps. By then, so he saith,
he can return with meat."
"No man hath ever ventured there. The shadow of _Perdlugssuaq_ is very
dark."
"Yea, may he smite Ootah!" exclaimed Maisanguaq.
Sipsu laughed harshly.
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