steady stream of death no man could advance.
“Never was there the like!” panted one of the Hungry Folk. “I did but look
in, and the dead were piled like seals on the ice after a killing!”
“Did I not say, mayhap, they were fighters?” cackled the wizened old
hunter.
“It was to be expected,” Aab-Waak answered stoutly. “We fought in a trap
of our making.”
“O ye fools !” Tyee chided. “Ye sons of fools! It was not planned, this
thing ye have done. To Neegah and the six young men only was it given to
go inside. My cunning is superior to the cunning of the Sunlanders, but ye
take away its edge, and rob me of its strength, and make it worse than no
cunning at all ! ”
No one made reply, and all eyes centred on the igloo, which loomed vague
and monstrous against the clear northeast sky. Through a hole in the roof
the smoke from the rifles curled slowly upward in the pulseless air, and
now and again a wounded man crawled painfully through the gray.
“Let each ask of his neighbor for Neegah and the six young men,” Tyee
commanded.
And after a time the answer came back, “Neegah and the six young men
are not.”
“And many more are not!” wailed a woman to the rear.
“The more wealth for those who are left,” Tyee grimly consoled. Then,
turning to Aab-Waak, he said: “Go thou, and gather together many
sealskins filled with oil. Let the hunters empty them on the outside wood
of the igloo and of the passage. And let them put fire to it ere the
Sunlanders make holes in the igloo for their guns.”
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54
Even as he spoke a hole appeared in the dirt plastered between the logs, a
rifle muzzle protruded, and one of the Hungry Folk clapped hand to his
side and leaped in the air. A second shot, through the lungs, brought him
to the ground. Tyee and the rest scattered to either side, out of direct
range, and Aab-Waak hastened the men forward with the skins of oil.
Avoiding the loopholes, which were making on every side of the igloo,
they emptied the skins on the dry drift-logs brought down by the Mandell
River from the tree-lands to the south. Ounenk ran forward with a blazing
brand, and the flames leaped upward. Many minutes passed, without sign,
and they held their weapons ready as the fire gained headway.
Tyee rubbed his hands gleefully as the dry structure burned and crackled.
“Now we have them, brothers! In the trap!”
“And no one may gainsay me the gun of Bill-Man,” Aab-Waak
announced.
“Save Bill-Man,” squeaked the old hunter. “For behold, he cometh now !”
Covered with a singed and blackened blanket, the big white man leaped
out of the blazing entrance, and on his heels, likewise shielded, came
Mesahchie, and the five other Sunlanders. The Hungry Folk tried to check
the rush with an ill-directed volley, while the Mandells hurled in a cloud
of spears and arrows. But the Sunlanders cast their flaming blankets from
them as they ran, and it was seen that each bore on his shoulders a small
pack of ammunition. Of all their possessions, they had chosen to save that.
Running swiftly and with purpose, they broke the circle and headed
directly for the great cliff, which towered blackly in the brightening day a
half-mile to the rear of the village.
But Tyee knelt on one knee and lined the sights of his rifle on the rearmost
Sunlander. A great shout went up when he pulled the trigger and the man
fell forward, struggled partly up, and fell again. Without regard for the
rain of arrows, another Sunlander ran back, bent over him, and lifted him
across his shoulders. But the Mandell spearmen were crowding up into
closer range, and a strong cast transfixed the wounded man. He cried out
and became swiftly limp as his comrade lowered him to the ground. In the
meanwhile, Bill- Man and the three others had made a stand and were
driving a leaden hail into the advancing spearmen. The fifth Sunlander
bent over his stricken fellow, felt the heart, and then coolly cut the straps
of the pack and stood up with the ammunition and extra gun.
“Now is he a fool!” cried Tyee, leaping high, as he ran forward, to clear
the squirming body of one of the Hungry Folk.
CHILDREN OF THE FROST
55
His own rifle was clogged so that he could not use it, and he called out for
some one to spear the Sunlander, who had turned and was running for
safety under the protecting fire. The little old hunter poised his spear on
the throwing-stick, swept his arm back as he ran, and delivered the cast.
“By the body of the Wolf, say I, it was a good throw!” Tyee praised, as the
fleeing man pitched forward, the spear standing upright between his
shoulders and swaying slowly forward and back.
The little wizened old man coughed and sat down. A streak of red showed
on his lips and welled into a thick stream. He coughed again, and a strange
whistling came and went with his breath.
“They, too, are unafraid, being great fighters,” he wheezed, pawing
aimlessly with his hands. “And behold! Bill-Man comes now! ”
Tyee glanced up. Four Mandells and one of the Hungry Folk had rushed
upon the fallen man and were spearing him from his knees back to the
earth. In the twinkling of an eye, Tyee saw four of them cut down by the
bullets of the Sunlanders. The fifth, as yet unhurt, seized the two rifles, but
as he stood up to make off he was whirled almost completely around by
the impact of a bullet in the arm, steadied by a second, and overthrown by
the shock of a third. A moment later and Bill-Man was on the spot, cutting
the pack-straps and picking up the guns.
This Tyee saw, and his own people falling as they straggled forward, and
he was aware of a quick doubt, and resolved to lie where he was and see
more. For some unaccountable reason, Mesahchie was running back to
Bill-Man; but before she could reach him, Tyee saw Peelo run out and
throw arms about her. He essayed to sling her across his shoulder, but she
grappled with him, tearing and scratching at his face. Then she tripped
him, and the pair fell heavily. When they regained their feet, Peelo had
shifted his grip so that one arm was passed under her chin, the wrist
pressing into her throat and strangling her. He buried his face in her breast,
taking the blows of her hands on his thick mat of hair, and began slowly to
force her off the field. Then it was, retreating with the weapons of his
fallen comrades, that Bill-Man came upon them. As Mesahchie saw him,
she twirled the victim around and held him steady. Bill-Man swung the
rifle in his right hand, and hardly easing his stride, delivered the blow.
Tyee saw Peelo drive to the earth as smote by a falling star, and the
Sunlander and Neegah’s daughter fleeing side by side.
A bunch of Mandells, led by one of the Hungry Folk, made a futile rush
which melted away into the earth before the scorching fire.
CHILDREN OF THE FROST
56
Tyee caught his breath and murmured, “Like the young frost in the
morning sun.”
“As I say, they are great fighters,’, the old hunter whispered weakly, far
gone in hemorrhage. “I know. I have heard. They be sea- robbers and
hunters of seals; and they shoot quick and true, for it is their way of life
and the work of their hands.”
“Like the young frost in the morning sun,” Tyee repeated, crouching for
shelter behind the dying man and peering at intervals about him.
It was no longer a fight, for no Mandell man dared venture forward, and as
it was, they were too close to the Sunlanders to go back. Three tried it,
scattering and scurrying like rabbits; but one came down with a broken
leg, another was shot through the body, and the third, twisting and
dodging, fell on the edge of the village. So the tribesmen crouched in the
hollow places and burrowed into the dirt in the open, while the Sunlanders’
bullets searched the plain.
“Move not,” Tyee pleaded, as Aab-Waak came worming over the ground
to him. “Move not, good Aab-Waak, else you bring death upon us.”
“Death sits upon many,” Aab-Waak laughed; “wherefore, as you say, there
will be much wealth in division. My father breathes fast and short behind
the big rock yon, and beyond, twisted like in a knot, lieth my brother. But
their share shall be my share, and it is well.”
“As you say, good Aab-Waak, and as I have said; but before division must