r which the men of Exaluq had been
waiting.

They started off all together with their sledges, but when they got a
long distance from the camp and very near to the storehouse, those
from Exaluq suddenly fell upon the others and slew them, for the men
from Quern had never suspected that there was any ill-feeling.

Fearing that if the dogs went back to camp without their masters, the
women and children would guess what had happened, they killed the dogs
also. When they returned, they told the women that their husbands had
separated from them and had gone off over a hill, and they did not
know what had become of them.

Now one of the young men had married a girl from Quern, and he went to
her house that night as usual, and she received him kindly, for she
believed what she had heard about the men of her party straying off.
She and all the other women thought the men would soon find their way
back, as they had hunted in these parts so long that they knew the
land.

But in the house was the girl's little brother who had seen the
husband come in; and after everybody was asleep he heard the spirits
of the murdered men calling and he recognized their voices. They told
him what had happened, and asked the boy to kill the young man in
revenge for their deaths. So he crept from under the bed and thrust a
knife into the young man's breast.

Then he awakened all the women and children in the great row of huts
and told them that the spirits of the dead men had come to him and
told of their murder, and had ordered him to avenge them by killing
the young man.

"Oh, what shall we do? What shall we do?" they cried. "They have
killed our men and they will kill us!" They were terribly frightened.

"We must fly from here before the men from Exaluq awaken and learn
that the young man is slain in revenge," said one of the old women.

"But how can we fly? Our dogs are dead, and we cannot travel fast
enough to escape."

"I will attend to that," said the old woman. In her hut was a litter
of pups, and as she was a conjurer, she said to them, "Grow up at
once." She had no fairy wand to wave over them, but she waved a stick,
and after waving it once the dogs[1] were half-grown. She waved it
again, saying, "Be full-grown instantly;" and they were.

They harnessed the dogs at once, and in order to deceive their enemies
they left everything in the huts and even left their lights burning,
so that when the men arose in the morning they wou