ned to puff, and
in a very short time was rolling thick white clouds from him like a
turret-gun in action. Evidently he was proud of his rapid attainments.

"Humph! That won't last long," murmured Rooney to his companion.

"Isn't it good?" said Kajo to Ippegoo.

"Ye-es. O yes. It's good; a-at least, I suppose it is," replied the
youth, with modesty.

A peculiar tinge of pallor overspread his face at that moment.

"What's wrong, Ippegoo?"

"I--I--feel f-funny."

"Never mind that," said Kajo. "It's always the way at first. When I
first tried it I--"

He was cut short by Ippegoo suddenly rising, dropping the pipe, clapping
one hand on his breast, the other on his mouth, and rushing into the
bushes where he disappeared like one of his own puffs of smoke. At the
same moment Rooney and Okiok appeared on the scene, laughing heartily.

"You rascal!" said Rooney to Kajo, on recovering his gravity; "you have
learned to drink, and you have learned to smoke, and, not satisfied with
that extent of depravity, you try to teach Ippegoo. You pitiful
creature! Are you not ashamed of yourself?"

Kajo looked sheepish, and admitted that he had some sensations of that
sort, but wasn't sure.

"Tell me," continued the seaman sternly, "before you tasted strong drink
or tobacco, did you want them?"

"No," replied Kajo.

"Are you in better health now that you've got them?"

"I--I _feel_ the better for them," replied Kajo.

"I did not ask what you _feel_," returned Rooney. "_Are_ you better now
than you were before? That's the question."

But Rooney never got a satisfactory answer to that question, and Kajo
continued to drink and smoke until, happily for himself, he had to quit
the settlements and proceed to the lands of thick-ribbed ice, where
nothing stronger than train oil and lamp-smoke were procurable.

As for poor Ippegoo, he did not show himself to his friends during the
remainder of that day. Being half an idiot, no one could prevail on him
thereafter to touch another pipe.

Now, while the Eskimos and our friends were engaged in hunting, and
holding an unwonted amount both of religious and philosophical
intercourse, a band of desperadoes was descending the valleys of the
interior of Greenland, with a view to plunder the Eskimos of the coast.

Hitherto we have written about comparatively well-behaved and genial
natives, but it must not be supposed that there were no villains of an
out-and-out character am