then, the rescue of
Nunaga too hard for Him?"

"I know not," returned Angut, who was, how ever, cheered a little by his
friend's tone and manner. "Everything is mystery. I look up, I look
around, I look within; all is dark, mysterious. Only on this is my mind
clear--the Great Spirit is good. He cannot be otherwise. I will trust
Him. One day, perhaps, He will explain all. What I understood not as a
little boy, I understand now as a man. Why should there not be more
light when I am an older man? If things go on in the mind as they have
been going ever since I can remember, perfect light may perhaps come at
last."

"You don't think like most of your countrymen," said Rooney, regarding
the grave earnest face of his friend with increased interest.

There was a touch of sadness in the tone of the Eskimo as he replied--

"No; I sometimes wonder--for their minds seem to remain in the childish
condition; though Okiok and Simek do seem at times as if they were
struggling into more light. I often wonder that they think so little,
and think so foolishly; but I do not speak much about it; it only makes
them fear that I am growing mad."

"I have never asked you, Angut--do your tribes in the north here hold
the same wild notions about the earth and heavens as the southern
Eskimos do?"

"I believe they do," replied Angut; "but I know not all they think in
the south. In this land they think,"--here a smile of good-natured pity
flickered for a moment on the man's face--"that the earth rests on
pillars, which are now mouldering away by age, so that they frequently
crack. These pillars would have fallen long ago if they had not been
kept in repair by the angekoks, who try to prove the truth of what they
say by bringing home bits of them--rotten pieces of wood. And the
strange thing is, that the people believe them!"

"Why don't you believe them, Angut?"

"I know not why."

"And what do your kinsmen think about heaven?" asked Rooney.

"They think it is supported on the peak of a lofty mountain in the
north, on which it revolves. The stars are supposed to be ancient
Greenlanders, or animals which have managed in some mysterious way to
mount up there, and who shine with varied brightness, according to the
nature of their food. The streaming lights of winter are the souls of
the dead dancing and playing ball in the sky."

"These are strange ideas," observed Rooney; "what have you to say about
them?"

"I think the