nd Kotuko was talking excitedly about his power over
spirits as he crouched round the lamp. In the middle of his wild sayings
the girl began to laugh, and rock herself backward and forward.

Behind her shoulder, crawling into the hut crawl by crawl, there were
two heads, one yellow and one black, that belonged to two of the most
sorrowful and ashamed dogs that ever you saw. Kotuko the dog was one,
and the black leader was the other. Both were now fat, well-looking, and
quite restored to their proper minds, but coupled to each other in an
extraordinary fashion. When the black leader ran off, you remember, his
harness was still on him. He must have met Kotuko the dog, and played or
fought with him, for his shoulder-loop had caught in the plaited copper
wire of Kotuko's collar, and had drawn tight, so that neither could get
at the trace to gnaw it apart, but each was fastened sidelong to
his neighbour's neck. That, with the freedom of hunting on their own
account, must have helped to cure their madness. They were very sober.

The girl pushed the two shamefaced creatures towards Kotuko, and,
sobbing with laughter, cried, "That is Quiquern, who led us to safe
ground. Look at his eight legs and double head!"

Kotuko cut them free, and they fell into his arms, yellow and black
together, trying to explain how they had got their senses back again.
Kotuko ran a hand down their ribs, which were round and well clothed.
"They have found food," he said, with a grin. "I do not think we shall
go to Sedna so soon. My tornaq sent these. The sickness has left them."

As soon as they had greeted Kotuko, these two, who had been forced to
sleep and eat and hunt together for the past few weeks, flew at each
other's throat, and there was a beautiful battle in the snow-house.
"Empty dogs do not fight," Kotuko said. "They have found the seal. Let
us sleep. We shall find food."

When they waked there was open water on the north beach of the island,
and all the loosened ice had been driven landward. The first sound of
the surf is one of the most delightful that the Inuit can hear, for it
means that spring is on the road. Kotuko and the girl took hold of hands
and smiled, for the clear, full roar of the surge among the ice
reminded them of salmon and reindeer time and the smell of blossoming
ground-willows. Even as they looked, the sea began to skim over between
the floating cakes of ice, so intense was the cold; but on the horizon
there was a