that," replied the wizard, "because I have not
consulted my torngak about him."

It must be explained here that each angekok has a private spirit, or
familiar, whose business it is to enlighten him on all points, and
conduct him on his occasional visits to the land of spirits. This
familiar is styled his "torngak."

"Did your torngak tell you that he was a Kablunet?" asked Okiok simply--
so simply that there was no room for Ujarak to take offence.

"No; my eyes told me that."

"I did not know that you had ever seen a Kablunet," returned the other,
with a look of surprise.

"Nor have I. But have I not often heard them described by the men of
the south? and has not my torngak showed them to me in dreams?"

The wizard said this somewhat tartly, and Okiok, feeling that he had
gone far enough, turned away his sharp little eyes, and gazed at the
lamp-smoke with an air of profound humility.

"You have got seal-flesh?" said Ujarak, glad to change the subject.

"Yes; I killed it yesterday. You are hungry? Nuna will give you some."

"No; I am not hungry. Nevertheless I will eat. It is good to eat at
all times."

"Except when we are stuffed quite full," murmured Okiok, casting at
Nunaga a sly glance, which threw that Eskimo maiden into what strongly
resembled a suppressed giggle. It was catching, for her brothers Norrak
and Ermigit were thrown into a similar condition, and even the baby
crowed out of sympathy. Indeed Red Rooney himself, who only simulated
sleep, found it difficult to restrain his feelings, for he began to
understand Okiok's character, and to perceive that he was more than a
match for the wizard with all his wisdom.

Whatever Ujarak may have felt, he revealed nothing, for he possessed
that well-known quality of the Eskimo--the power to restrain and conceal
his feelings--in a high degree. With a quiet patronising smile, he bent
down in quite a lover-like way, and asked Nunaga if the seal-flesh was
good.

"Yes, it is good; _very_ good," answered the maiden, looking modestly
down, and toying with the end of her tail. You see she had no
scent-bottle or fan to toy with. To be sure she had gloves--thick
sealskin mittens--but these were not available at the moment.

"I knew you had a seal," said the angekok, pausing between bites, after
the edge of his appetite had been taken off; "my torngak told me you had
found one at last."

"Did he tell you that I had also found a bear?" asked Okiok, with