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ine after that slicing cold outside. It was Amatikita's house I was brought to, and he was very hospitable. They took off my outer clothes and put them on the rack above the soapstone lamp to dry, and waited on me most kindly. Indeed, they recognized me as a superior at once, and kept on doing it. They put tender young seal-meat in the dish above the lamp, and when it was cooked I ate my part of the stew, and then got up and took the best place on the raised sleeping-bench at the farther side of the hut. I cut a fill for my pipe, lit up and passed the plug, and presently we were all smoking, happy as you please. Amatikita spoke up like a man. "Very pleased to see you, Cappie. What you come for? What you want?" "You're a man of business," I said. "You waste no time. I like that. What I want is bearskins. The jackets of big, white, baggy-trousered polar bears, you know; and I brought along a couple of tip-top rifles for you to get them with. Now, I make you a fair offer. Get me all the bears in the North Polar regions, and you shall have my Henrys and all the cartridges that are left over. And as for the meat, you shall have that as your own share of the game." "You want shoot those bears yourself?" "Not if I can help it. I'm an engineer, and a good one at that. But as a sportsman I've had but little experience, and don't seem drawn toward learning. It is too draughty up here, just at present, for my taste. I'll stay and keep house, and maybe do a bit of repairing and inventing among the furniture. I've brought along a hand-vice and a bag of tools with me, and if you can supply drift-wood and some scrap-iron, I'll make this turf-house of yours a real cottage." The deal was made. I worked away with my tools, and whenever those powdering winter gales eased for a little, Amatikita and his friends would go off with the howling dog-sledges and the Henrys, and it was rare that they'd come back without one bear, and often they'd bring two or even three. These white bears sleep through the black winter months in hollows in the cliffs, and the Esquimaux know their lairs, though it's rare enough they dare tackle them. Small blame, too, you'd say, if you saw the flimsy bone-tipped lances and harpoons, which are all they are armed with. With a good, smashing, heavy-bore Henry rifle it is a different thing. The Esquimaux were no cowards. They would walk up within a yard of a bear, when the dogs had ringed it, and blow
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