cocking his head
meditatively--"one objection, and only one. He was an Indian from over
on the edge of the Chippewyan country, but the trouble was, he'd picked
up a smattering of the Scriptures. Been campmate a season with a
renegade French Canadian who'd studied for the church. Moosu'd never
seen applied Christianity, and his head was crammed with miracles,
battles, and dispensations, and what not he didn't understand. Otherwise
he was a good sort, and a handy man on trail or over a fire.

"We'd had a hard time together and were badly knocked out when we plumped
upon Tattarat. Lost outfits and dogs crossing a divide in a fall
blizzard, and our bellies clove to our backs and our clothes were in rags
when we crawled into the village. They weren't much surprised at seeing
us--because of the whalemen--and gave us the meanest shack in the village
to live in, and the worst of their leavings to live on. What struck me
at the time as strange was that they left us strictly alone. But Moosu
explained it.

"'Shaman _sick tumtum_,' he said, meaning the shaman, or medicine man,
was jealous, and had advised the people to have nothing to do with us.
From the little he'd seen of the whalemen, he'd learned that mine was a
stronger race, and a wiser; so he'd only behaved as shamans have always
behaved the world over. And before I get done, you'll see how near right
he was.

"'These people have a law,' said Mosu: 'whoso eats of meat must hunt. We
be awkward, you and I, O master, in the weapons of this country; nor can
we string bows nor fling spears after the manner approved. Wherefore the
shaman and Tummasook, who is chief, have put their heads together, and it
has been decreed that we work with the women and children in dragging in
the meat and tending the wants of the hunters.'

"'And this is very wrong,' I made to answer; 'for we be better men,
Moosu, than these people who walk in darkness. Further, we should rest
and grow strong, for the way south is long, and on that trail the weak
cannot prosper.'"

"'But we have nothing,' he objected, looking about him at the rotten
timbers of the igloo, the stench of the ancient walrus meat that had been
our supper disgusting his nostrils. 'And on this fare we cannot thrive.
We have nothing save the bottle of "pain-killer," which will not fill
emptiness, so we must bend to the yoke of the unbeliever and become
hewers of wood and drawers of water. And there be good things in t