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