?" asked the Eskimo. "How if you cannot
see him at all, yet want to tell of him in--in--what did you say--
writing? I want to send marks to my mother to say that I have talked
with my torngak. How do you mark torngak? I never saw him. No man
ever saw a torngak. And how do you make marks for cold, for wind, for
all our thoughts, and for the light?"

It was now Red Rooney's turn to look perplexed. He knew that writing
was easy enough to him who understands it, and he felt that there must
be some method of explaining the matter, but how to go about the
explanation to one so utterly ignorant did not at once occur to him. We
have seen, however, that Rooney was a resolute man, not to be easily
baffled. After a few moments' thought he said--

"Look here now, Angut. Your people can count?"

"Yes; they can go up to twenty. I can go a little further, but most of
the Innuits get confused in mind beyond twenty, because they have only
ten fingers and ten toes to look at."

"Well now," continued Rooney, holding up his left hand, with the fingers
extended, "that's five."

Yes, Angut understood that well.

"Well, then," resumed Rooney, jotting down the figure 5, "there you have
it--five. Any boy at school could tell you what that is."

The Eskimo pondered deeply and stared. The other Eskimos did the same.

"But what," asked Okiok, "if a boy should say that it was six, and not
five?"

"Why, then we'd whack him, and he'd never say that again."

There was an explosion of laughter at this, for Eskimos are tender and
indulgent to their children, and seldom or never whack them.

It would be tedious to go further into this subject, or to describe the
ingenious methods by which the seaman sought to break up the fallow
ground of Angut's eminently receptive mind. Suffice it to say that
Rooney made the discovery that the possession of knowledge is one thing,
and the power to communicate it another and a very different thing.
Angut also came to the conclusion that, ignorant as he had thought
himself to be, his first talk with the Kablunet had proved him to be
immeasurably more ignorant than he had supposed.

The sailor marked the depression which was caused by this piece of
knowledge, and set himself good-naturedly to counteract the evil by
displaying his watch, at sight of which there was a wild exclamation of
surprise and delight from all except Angut, who, however deep his
feelings might be, always kept them bridled.