The Eskimo Twins Part 13

At last, when all the boats, big and little, were afloat, Kesshoo called out, "We are going north. Follow me."

The women obeyed the signal of Koko's father and the Angakok. The paddles dipped together into the water. The great boats moved! They were off!

The children all sat together in the bottom of the boat, but the twins and Koko were big enough to see over the sides. While the babies played with the dogs, they were busy watching the things that pa.s.sed on the sh.o.r.es. Soon they pa.s.sed the Big Rock with little auks and puffins flying about it. They could see the red feet of the puffins, and a blue fox sitting on the top of the rock, waiting for a chance to catch a bird.

Then the Big Rock hid the village from sight.

III.

Beyond the Big Rock the country was all new to the twins and Koko. They looked into narrow bays and inlets as the boat moved along, and saw green moss carpeting the sunny slopes in sheltered places.

They could even see bright flowers growing in the warm spots which faced the sun. The sky was blue overhead. The water was blue below.

Beyond the green slopes they could see the bare hillsides crowned with the white ice cap which never melts, and streams of water das.h.i.+ng down the hillsides and pouring themselves into the waters of the bay.

When they had gone a good many miles up the coast, Kesshoo waved his hand and pointed to a strange sight on the sh.o.r.e.

There was a great river of ice! They could see where it came out of a hollow place between two hills. It looked just like a river, only it was frozen solid, and the end of it, where it came into the sea, was broken off like a great wall of ice, and there were cakes of ice floating about in the water.

Suddenly there was a cracking sound. Menie had heard that sound before.

It was the same sound that he had heard when he went seal-hole hunting and got carried away on the ice raft. Menie didn't like the sound anymore. It scared him!

Right after the cracking noise Kesshoo's voice shouted, "Row farther out! Follow me!"

He turned his kyak straight out to sea. All the other boats followed.

They had gone only about half a mile when suddenly there was a loud crick-crick-CRACK as if a piece of the world had broken off, and then there was a splash that could be heard for miles, if there had been any one to hear it.

The end of the glacier, or ice river, had broken off and fallen down into the water! It had made an iceberg!

The splash was so great that in a moment the waves it made reached the boats. The boats rocked up and down on the water and bounced about like corks.

The twins and Koko thought this was great fun, but the Angakok didn't like it a bit. One wave splashed over him, and some of the water went down his neck.

All the grown people knew that if they hadn't rowed quickly away from sh.o.r.e when Kesshoo called they might have been upset and drowned.

IV.

When the waves made by the iceberg had calmed down again, Kesshoo paddled round among the boats.

He said, "I think we'd better land about a mile above here. There's a stream there, and perhaps we can get some salmon for our dinner."

He led the way in his kyak, and all the other boats followed. They kept out of the path of the iceberg, which had already floated some distance from the sh.o.r.e, and it was not long before they came to a little inlet.

Kesshoo paddled into it and up to the very end of it, where a beautiful stream of clear water came das.h.i.+ng down over the rocks into the sea.

The hills sloped suddenly down to the sh.o.r.e. The sun shone brightly on the green slopes, and the high cliffs behind shut off the cold north winds. It was a little piece of summer set right down in the valley.

"Oh, how beautiful!" everybody cried.

The boats were soon drawn up on the beach, the women and children tumbled out, and then began preparations for dinner.

The women got out their cooking pots, and Koolee set to work to make a fireplace out of three stones.

They had blubber and moss with them, but how could they get a fire?

They had no matches. They had never even heard of a match.

The Angakok sat down on the beach. He had some little pieces of dry driftwood and some dried moss.

He held one end of a piece of driftwood in a sort of handle which he pressed against his lips. The other end was in a hollow spot in another piece of wood.

The Angakok rolled one driftwood stick round and round in the hollow spot of the other. He did this by means of a bow which he pulled from one side to the other. This made the stick whirl first one way, then back again. Soon a little smoke came curling up round the stick.

Koolee dropped some dried moss on the smoking spot. Suddenly there was a little blaze!

She fed the little flame with more moss, and then lighted the moss on the stones of the fireplace. She put a soapstone kettle filled with water over the fire, and soon the kettle was boiling.

While all this was going on down on the beach, the men took their salmon spears and went up the river, and Koko and the twins went with them.

The wives of the Angakok went to find moss to feed the fire. They brought back great armfuls of it, and put it beside the fireplace.

Koolee was the cook. She stayed on the beach and looked after the babies and the dogs, and the fire. Everything was ready for dinner, except the food!

Meanwhile the men had found a good place where there were big stones in the river. They stood on these stones with their spears in their hands.

There were hundreds of salmon in the little stream. The salmon were going up to the little lake from which the river flowed.

When the fish leaped in the water, the men struck at them with their fish spears. There were so many fish, and the men were so skillful that they soon had plenty for dinner.

They strung them all on a walrus line and went back to the beach.

Koolee popped as many as she could into her pot to cook, but the men were so hungry they ate theirs raw, and the twins and Koko had as many fishes' eyes to eat as they wanted, for once in their lives.

When everybody had eaten as much as he could possibly hold, the babies were rolled up in furs in the sand and went to sleep. The Angakok lay down on the sand in the suns.h.i.+ne with his hands over his stomach and was soon asleep, too.

The men sat in a little group near by, and Menie and Koko lay on their stomachs beside Kesshoo.

The women had gone a little farther up the beach. The air was still, except for the rippling sound of the water, the distant chatter of the women, the snores of the Angakok, and the buzzing of mosquitoes!

For quite a long time everybody rested. Menie and Koko didn't go to sleep. They were having too much fun. They played with sh.e.l.ls and pebbles and watched the mosquitoes buzzing over the Angakok's face.

There were a great many mosquitoes, and they seemed to like the Angakok. At last one settled on his nose, and bit and bit. Menie and Koko wanted to slap it, but, of course, they didn't dare. They just had to let it bite!

All of a sudden the Angakok woke up and slapped it himself. He slapped it harder than he intended to. He looked very much surprised and quite offended about it. He sat up and looked round for his wives, as if he thought perhaps they had something to do with it. But they were at the other end of the beach. The Angakok yawned and rubbed his nose, which was a good deal swollen.

Just then Kesshoo spoke, "I think we shall look a long time before we find a better spot than this to camp," he said. "Here are plenty of salmon. We can catch all we need to dry for winter use, right here.

There must be deer farther up the fiord. What do you say to setting up the tents right here?"

When Kesshoo said anything, the others were pretty sure to agree, because Kesshoo was such a brave and skillful man that they trusted his judgment.