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s his skill with the spouter. He was taken out on all their hunting expeditions, and fully initiated into all the mysteries of seals, walrus, deer, and musk-ox killing. Of course the wonderful gun was brought into frequent requisition, but its owner was obliged to have regard to his powder and shot, and had to explain that without these the spouter would refuse to spout, and all its powers would vanish. When this was thoroughly understood, his hosts ceased to persecute him with regard to displays of his skill. One day, in the dead of the long winter, Cheenbuk proposed to Nazinred to go on a hunt after bears. The latter declined, on the ground that he had already arranged to go with Mangivik to watch at a seal-hole. Cheenbuk therefore resolved to take Anteek with him instead. Gartok was present when the expedition was projected, and offered to accompany it. "I fear you are not yet strong enough," said Cheenbuk, whose objection, however, was delivered in pleasant tones,--for a change for the better had been gradually taking place in Gartok since the date of his wound, and his old opponent not only felt nothing of his ancient enmity towards him, but experienced a growing sensation of pity,--for the once fire-eating Eskimo did not seem to recover health after the injury he had received from the Fire-spouter's bullet. "I am not yet stout enough to fight the bears," he said with a half-sad look, "but I am stout enough to look on, and perhaps the sight of it might stir up my blood and make me feel stronger." Old Mangivik, who was sitting close by, heaved a deep sigh at this point. Doubtless the poor man was thinking of his own strength in other days--days of vigour which had departed for ever--at least in this life; yet the old man's hopes in regard to the life to come were pretty strong, though not well defined. "Well, you may come," said Cheenbuk, as he rose and went out with Anteek to harness the dogs. In less than half an hour they were careering over the ice in the direction of a bay in the land where fresh bear-tracks had been seen the day before. The bay was a deep one, extending four or five miles up into the interior of the island. We have assumed that the land in question was an island because of its being in the neighbourhood of a large cluster of islands which varied very considerably in size; but there is no certainty as to this, for the region was then, and still is, very imperfectly know
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