l-nigh disappeared, a word or two began to pass to and fro. At last
Cheenbuk arose, and, taking a small cup of birch-bark, which, with a
skin of water, formed part of the supplies provided by Adolay, he filled
it to the brim, and the two concluded their supper with the cheering
fluid.

"Ah!" sighed the girl, when she had disposed of her share, "the white
traders bring us a black stuff which we mix with water hot, and find it
very good to drink."

"Yes? What is it?" asked Cheenbuk, applying his lips a second time with
infinite zest to the water.

"I know not what it is. The white men call it tee," said Adolay,
dwelling with affectionate emphasis on the _ee's_.

"Ho! I should like to taste that tee-ee," said the youth, with
exaggerated emphasis on the _ee's_. "Is it better than water?"

"I'm not sure of that," answered the girl, with a gaze of uncertainty at
the fire, "but we like it better than water--the women do; the men are
fonder of fire-water, when they can get it, but the white traders seldom
give us any, and they never give us much. We women are very glad of
that, for the fire-water makes our men mad and wish to fight. Tee, when
we take too much of it--which we always do--only makes us sick."

"Strange," said Cheenbuk, with a look of profundity worthy of Solomon,
"that your people should be so fond of smokes and drinks that make them
sick and mad when they have so much of the sparkling water that makes us
comfortable!"

Adolay made no reply to this, for her mind was not by nature
philosophically disposed, though she was intelligent enough to admire
the sagacity of a remark that seemed to her fraught with illimitable
significance.

"Have you any more strange things in your bundle?" asked the Eskimo,
whose curiosity was awakened by what had already been extracted from it.
"Have you some of the tee, or the fire-water, or any more of the thing
that smokes--what you call it?"

"Tubuko--no, I have no more of that than you saw in the fire-bag. The
white men sometimes call it bukey, and I have no fire-water or tee.
Sometimes we put a nice sweet stuff into the tee which the white men
call shoogir. The Indian girls are very fond of shoogir. They like it
best without being mixed with water and tee. But we have that in our
own land. We make it from the juice of a tree."

The interest with which Cheenbuk gazed into the girl's face while she
spoke, was doubtless due very much to the prettiness thereof, b