The Walrus Hunters: A Romance of the Realms of Ice. Robert Michael Ballantyne
our own braves. His mind was deep and wide. He did not talk only of food and sleep and hunting. He spoke of things past and present and future, and of the Great Spirit, and the world to come. Also of peace and war; and we both agreed that peace was good and war hateful. More than that, we found that it was foolish. Then we parted. He went, I suppose, to his people on the sea of ice, and I came home.
“He told me that none of his people were with him—that he was alone. There is therefore no occasion for the young men to look fierce or go on the war-path.”
Having thus tried to throw oil on the troubled waters Nazinred came to an abrupt pause.
Instantly one of the younger councillors, named Magadar, sprang to his feet. He was unusually excitable for an Indian. Indeed, he differed a good deal from his companions in other respects, being passionate, impulsive, hasty, and matter-of-fact; in his speech-making too he scorned the use of symbol and metaphor, but went straight to the point at once in the simplest and most forcible language at his command.
“Braves,” he said, looking at the previous speaker with a dark frown, “the Dogribs know nothing of those strange and stupid notions that have just come out of the lips of Nazinred. He says that this dirty Eskimo is a deep thinker and a man who loves peace. How does he know that one of that sort may not think so deeply as to deceive him? How does he know that the young man is not a liar—that many of his warriors may not be in our hunting-grounds even at this moment, though he says there are none? As for his talk about the Great Spirit and the future, what does he know about either the one or the other? Is he wiser than the Dogribs? Does his attack on Nazinred look like a lover of peace? His leaving off when he found that Nazinred was his match seems to me more like sly wisdom than the hatred of war. My advice is not to trust these dirty men of the ice, but to take our guns at once and drive them from the land.”
It was quite evident from the way in which this speech was received that the war-party was in the ascendant, and there is no doubt that Magadar’s advice would have prevailed, and a war-party been organised forthwith, but for the arrival of a band of successful hunters, who had been out for some time in quest of food.
For a considerable part of that winter those Indians had been in a condition of semi-starvation. They had managed with difficulty to sustain themselves and families on rabbits, which were scarce that year. With the return of spring and the wild-fowl, however, things had begun to improve, and the hunting party above referred to was the first of the season that had returned to camp heavily laden with geese, ducks, plover, and other supplies of food, so that the half-famished people gave themselves up to feasting, and had no time to think further of war.
Thus many days were passed without any reference being made to a fight with the Eskimos, and Nazinred, believing that the fancy to go on the war-path had passed away, set off on what was to be a long hunting expedition with three of his comrades who were like-minded with himself. Among other plans, this party intended to visit the establishment of the fur-traders on Great Bear Lake.
Thus when the belligerent party of Eskimos arrived at the mouth of Greygoose, or Whale, River, they found the place, as they had been accustomed to find it, a complete solitude.
At first they expected to overtake their comrade Cheenbuk there, but he was not found, having gone a considerable way inland in pursuit of game. Being aware of his peaceful proclivities, however, the Eskimos were not sorry to miss him, and they set about making an encampment on the shore at the mouth of the river, intending to leave the women there while they should be engaged in hunting and in searching for the Fire-spouters.
Meanwhile these Fire-spouters, having eaten and slept, and eaten and slept again, to the extent of their capacities, began to experience a revival of the war-spirit.
In front of one of the lodges or leather tents, one morning early, there sat two squaws engaged in ornamenting moccasins and discussing the news of their little world.
It was one of those bright genial mornings in spring peculiar to Arctic lands, in which Warmth comes out with a burst victorious, and Cold shrinks away discomfited. Everything looked as if a great revival of Nature were at hand—as in truth it was, for the long Arctic winter is always driven away with a rush by the vigour, if not the violence, of the brief Arctic spring.
One of the women was young and pretty—yes, we might almost say beautiful. It is quite a mistake to suppose that all savages are coarse, rough, and ugly. Many of them, no doubt—perhaps most of them—are plain enough, but not a few of the Indian squaws are fairly good-looking, and this one, as we have said at the risk of being doubted, was beautiful; at all events she had a fine oval face, a smooth warm-coloured skin, a neat little nose, a well-formed mouth, and jet-black hair, with large lustrous eyes, to say nothing of her teeth, which, like the teeth of most Indians, were regular and brilliantly white. Her name was Adolay—that being the Indian name for Summer.
The other squaw was her mother. She was usually styled Isquay—which means woman—by her husband when he was at home, but, being a great hunter, he was not often at home. Poor Isquay might have been good-looking in her youth, but, alas! hard work, occasional starvation, and a rough life, had prematurely dissipated her beauty, whatever it might have been; yet these conditions could not put to flight the lines and dimples of kindliness which played about her weatherworn eyes and cheeks. You see, she had a gentle, indulgent husband, and that made her happy and kept her so.
“Magadar is stirring up the young men again to go on the war-path,” said the younger woman, without looking up from the embroidered moccasin with which she was engaged.
“Yes, I know it. I heard him as he passed our tent talking to Alizay. I don’t like Alizay; he is like gunpowder: the least thing sets him off, and he flashes up horribly.”
“But many of our other braves have no desire to quarrel with the Eskimos,” said Adolay; “indeed, some are even fond of them. And some of the men of the ice are very handsome. Don’t you remember that one, mother, that we met when we went last spring with some of our men to shoot at the Greygoose River? He was a fine man—big and strong, and active and kind—almost good enough to be a Dogrib.”
“I remember him well,” returned Isquay, “for he saved my life. Have you forgotten that already?”
“No, I have not forgotten it,” answered the girl, with a slight smile. “Did I not stand on the riverbank with my heart choking me when I saw the ice rushing down with the flood and closing on your canoe—for I could do nothing to help you, and none of our men were near! And did I not see the brave man of the ice, when he heard my cry, come running like the deer and jump into the river and swim like the otter till he got to you, and then he scrambled on a big bit of ice and lifted you and the canoe out of the water as if he had the strength of a moose-deer, after which he guided the ice-lump to the bank with one of your paddles! Forget it! no. I only wish the brave Eskimo was an Indian.”
“I think you would be offering to be his squaw if he was,” said the mother with a short laugh.
“Perhaps I would. But he’s only an eater-of-raw-flesh!” Adolay sighed as gently as if she had been a civilised girl! “But he has gone away to the great ice lake, so I suppose we shall never see him again.”
“Unless,” said Isquay, “he comes back this spring with his people, and our braves have a fight with them—then you would be likely to see his scalp again, if not himself.”
Adolay made no reply to this; neither did she seem shocked at the suggestion. Indeed, Indian women are too much accustomed to real shocking to be much troubled with shocks of the imagination. Holding out her moccasin at arm’s-length, the better to note the effect of her work, she expressed regret that her father had gone off with the hunters, for she felt sure he would have been able to allay the war-fever among the young braves if he had remained at home.
“Ay, he would easily have put down Alizay and Magadar; but the old chief can do nothing, he is growing too old. The young men don’t mind him now. Besides, he is warlike as well as they.”
While they were conversing thus, the young men referred to had finally decided to go on the war-path—to search for the Eskimo who had fought with their chief Nazinred, find him and kill him, and then continue the search for his companions; for they