est of reasoning--in which
characteristic do they not strongly resemble some people who ought to
know better? The matter-of-fact leader smiled grimly, and made no
further objection to the wizard's claim to correct intelligence.

"Now," continued Ujarak, for he felt the importance of at once taking
and keeping the upper hand, "my tribe is not far from here; but they are
going away on a hunting expedition, so you must lose no time, else they
will be gone before you arrive. They want iron very much. They have
horns and tusks in plenty. They will be glad to see you. My torngak
told me you were coming, so I came out a long way to meet you. I
brought my wives and children with me, because I want to visit the
Kablunets, and inquire about their new religion."

He paused for a moment or two, to let his tissue of lies have full
effect, but the very matter-of-fact leader took advantage of the pause
to ask how it was that if he, Ujarak, had been told by his torngak of
the coming of the trading party, he had failed to tell his tribe _not_
to go on a hunting expedition, but to await their arrival.

"Ha! ho!" exclaimed several of the Eskimos, turning a sharp gaze upon
the wizard, as much as to say, "There's a puzzler for you, angekok!"

But Ujarak, although pulled up for a moment, was not to be overturned
easily. "Torngaks," he said, "do not always reveal all they know at
once. If they did, angekoks would only have to listen to all they had
to tell on every subject, and there would be an end of it; they would
have no occasion to use their judgments at all. No; the torngaks tell
what they choose by degrees. Mine told me to leave my tribe, and visit
the Kablunets. On the way he told me more, but not _all_."

This explanation seemed quite satisfactory to some, but not to all of
them. Seeing this, the wizard hastened to turn their minds from the
subject by asking how far it was to the land of the Kablunets.

"Four suns' journey," replied the leader.

"It is the same to the village of my kindred," exclaimed Ujarak, getting
quickly on his sledge. "I must hasten on, and so must you. Time must
not be wasted."

With a flourish of his whip, he started his team at full speed,
scattering the Eskimos right and left, and scouring over the ice like
the wind.

For a moment or two the leader of the band thought of pursuit, but
seeing at a glance that none of his teams were equal to that of Ujarak,
and feeling, perhaps, that it