dogs) would rend the gentle bear. Thou rememberest the
old men's tale. A woman ran away from her family. She was false at
heart. The good mother bear protected her and gave her food. But
yearning for her husband, she returned and to gain his favor betrayed
the hiding place of the mother-bear and her young. Then the husband
drove out with sledges. His dogs attacked the bear. But they all
became stars and went up into the sky. Even as the bear was good to
the false woman so hast thou made clothing for those yonder, and now
they would as the dogs rend thee. Thou needest a husband."

"They would be bitter to thee," she argued.

"Perchance, but I would protect thee. I love thee."

Annadoah shook her head. "The teeth of the wolves are in my heart,"
she said. "And I no longer care."

"Yonder _Nalagssartoq_ (he who waits and listens) bends to hear thy
reply." Ootah pointed to Venus, the brightest of the stars--to the
Eskimos an old man who waits by a blow-hole in the heavenly icefloes
and listens for the breathing of seals. "Thou wilt come to Ootah, who
loves thee? Answer, Annadoah! Ootah listens."

He soothed her little hands. A wondrous light burned in his eyes.
Every fibre of his being yearned for her. But Annadoah's hands were
cold, her eyes were sullenly turned away. In her heart a vague fear of
him, a resentment of his very love, stirred.

"My shadow yearns to the south," she repeated pathetically. "I shall
wait. Perhaps he will come as he said when the spring hunting sings."
In her heart she feared that he would not.

Ootah in utter anguish dropped her hands. Annadoah sadly turned away.
Falling to his knees on the ice, he covered his face with his arms.
The sound of his heartbroken sobbing was drowned in the funereal chant
of the women as, in a long procession, they passed near him on their
way to the shore.

When he raised his head, the rim of the moon, a great quarter-disc of
silver, peeped above the horizon. A mystical melancholy light flooded
the gloriously gleaming desolate white world. The ice floes glistened
as with the dust of diamonds. The ice covered faces of the
promontories glowed with the sheen of burnished metal. The clouds
became tremulous masses of argent phosphorescence. Far away the
women's chants subsided. One by one they joined the men in their
grotesque dances in the distant igloos. Ootah was left alone.

He gazed long upon the pearly lamp of heaven. The subt