Neegah’s igloo. Not but that they paid well in flour and sugar for the
lodging, but Neegah was aggrieved because Mesahchie, his daughter,
elected to cast her fortunes and seek food and blanket with Bill-Man, who
was leader of the party of white men.
“She is worth a price,” Neegah complained to the gathering by the
councfl-fire, when the six white men were asleep. “She is worth a price,
for we have more men than women, and the men be bidding high. The
hunter Ounenk offered me a kayak, new-made, and a gun which he got in
trade from the Hungry Folk. This was I offered, and behold, now she is
gone and I have nothing! ”
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“I, too, did bid for Mesahchie,” grumbled a voice, in tones not altogether
joyless, and Peelo shoved his broad-checked, jovial face for a moment into
the light.
“Thou, too,” Neegah affirmed. “And there were others. Why is there such
a restlessness upon the Sunlanders?” he demanded petulantly. “Why do
they not stay at home? The Snow People do not wander to the lands of the
Sunlanders.”
“Better were it to ask why they come,” cried a voice from the darkness,
and Aab-Waak pushed his way to the front.
“Ay! Why they come !” clamored many voices, and Aab-Waak waved his
hand for silence.
“Men do not dig in the ground for nothing,” he began. “And I have it in
mind of the Whale People, who are likewise Sunlanders, and who lost
their ship in the ice. You all remember the Whale People, who came to us
in their broken boats, and who went away into the south with dogs and
sleds when the frost arrived and snow covered the land. And you
remember, while they waited for the frost, that one man of them dug in the
ground, and then two men and three, and then all men of them, with great
excitement and much disturbance. What they dug out of the ground we do
not know, for they drove us away so we could not see. But afterward,
when they were gone, we looked and found nothing. Yet there be much
ground and they did not dig it all.”
“Ay, Aab-Waak! Ay! ” cried the people in admiration.
“Wherefore I have it in mind,” he concluded, “that one Sunlander tells
another, and that these Sunlanders have been so told and are come to dig
in the ground.”
“But how can it be that Bill-Man speaks our tongue?” demanded a little
wizened old hunter,—”Bill-Man, upon whom never before our eyes have
rested?”
“Bill-Man has been other times in the Snow Lands,” Aab-Waak answered,
“else would he not speak the speech of the Bear People, which is like the
speech of the Hungry Folk, which is very like the speech of the Mandells.
For there have been many Sunlanders among the Bear People, few among
the Hungry Folk, and none at all among the Mandells, save the Whale
People and those who sleep now in the igloo of Neegah.” “Their sugar is
very good,” Neegah commented, “and their flour.”
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“They have great wealth,” Ounenk added. “Yesterday I was to their ship,
and beheld most cunning tools of iron, and knives, and guns, and flour,
and sugar, and strange foods without end.”
“It is so, brothers !” Tyee stood up and exulted inwardly at the respect and
silence his people accorded him. “They be very rich, these Sunlanders.
Also, they be fools. For behold! They come among us boldly, blindly, and
without thought for all of their great wealth. Even now they snore, and we
are many and unafraid.”
“Mayhap they, too, are unafraid, being great fighters,” the wizened little
old hunter objected.
But Tyee scowled upon him. “Nay, it would not seem so. They live to the
south, under the path of the sun, and are soft as their dogs are soft. You
remember the dog of the Whale People? Our dogs ate him the second day,
for he was soft and could not fight. The sun is warm and life easy in the
Sun Lands, and the men are as women, and the women as children.”
Heads nodded in approval, and the women craned their necks to listen.
“It is said they are good to their women, who do little work,” tittered
Likeeta, a broad-tripped, healthy young woman, daughter to Tyee himself.
“Thou wouldst follow the feet of Mesahchie, eh?” he cried angrily. Then
he turned swiftly to the tribesmen. “Look you, brothers, this is the way of
the Sunlanders! They have eyes for our women, and take them one by one.
As Mesahchie has gone, cheating Neegah of her price, so will Likeeta go,
so will they all go, and we be cheated. I have talked with a hunter from the
Bear People, and I know. There be Hungry Folk among us; let them speak
if my words be true.”
The six hunters of the Hungry Folk attested the truth and fell each to
telling his neighbor of the Sunlanders and their ways. There were
mutterings from the younger men, who had wives to seek, and from the
older men, who had daughters to fetch prices, and a low hum of rage rose
higher and clearer.
“They are very rich, and have cunning tools of iron, and knives, and guns
without end,” Tyee suggested craftily, his dream of sudden wealth
beginning to take shape.
“I shall take the gun of Bill-Man for myself,” Aab-Waak suddenly
proclaimed.
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“Nay, it shall be mine!” shouted Neegah; `’for there is the price of
Mesahchie to be reckoned.”
“Peace! O brothers!” Tyee swept the assembly with his hands. “Let the
women and children go to their igloos. This is the talk of men; let it be for
the ears of men.”
“There be guns in plenty for all,” he said when the women had unwillingly
withdrawn. “I doubt not there will be two guns for each man, without
thought of the flour and sugar and other things. And it is easy. The six
Sunlanders in Neegah’s igloo will we kill to-night while they sleep. Tomorrow
will we go in peace to the ship to trade, and there, when the time
favors, kill all their brothers. And to-morrow night there shall be feasting
and merriment and division of wealth. And the least man shall possess
more than did ever the greatest before. Is it wise, that which I have
spoken, brothers?”
A low growl of approval answered him, and preparation for the attack was
begun. The six Hungry Folk, as became members of a wealthier tribe,
were armed with rifles and plenteously supplied with ammunition. But it
was only here and there that a Mandell possessed a gun, many of which
were broken, and there was a general slackness of powder and shells. This
poverty of war weapons, however, was relieved by myriads of boneheaded
arrows and casting-spears for work at a distance, and for close
quarters steel knives of Russian and Yankee make.
“Let there be no noise,” Tyee finally instructed; “but be there many on
every side of the igloo, and close, so that the Sunlanders may not break
through. Then do you, Neegah, with six of the young men behind, crawl in
to where they sleep. Take no guns, which be prone to go off at unexpected
times, but put the strength of your arms into the knives.”
“And be it understood that no harm befall Mesahchie, who is worth a
price,” Neegah whispered hoarsely.
Flat upon the ground, the small army concentred on the igloo, and behind,
deliciously expectant, crouched many women and children, come out to
witness the murder. The brief August night was passing, and in the gray of
dawn could be dimly discerned the creeping forms of Neegah and the
young men. Without pause, on hands and knees, they entered the long
passageway and disappeared. Tyee rose up and rubbed his hands. All was
going well. Head after head in the big circle lifted and waited. Each man
pictured the scene according to his nature— the sleeping men, the plunge
of the knives, and the sudden death in the dark.
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A loud hail, in the voice of a Sunlander, rent the silence, and a shot rang
out. Then an uproar broke loose inside the igloo. Without premeditation,
the circle swept forward into the passageway. On the inside, half a dozen
repeating rifles began to chatter, and the Mandells, jammed in the
confined space, were powerless. Those at the front strove madly to retreat
from the fire-spitting guns in their very faces, and those in the rear pressed
as madly forward to the attack. The bullets from the big 45: go’s drove
through half a dozen men at a shot, and the passageway, gorged with
surging, helpless men, became a shambles. The rifles, pumped without
aim into the mass, withered it away like a machine gun, and against that