turies ago when it was customary to abduct brides.

An excited crowd gathered outside of Attalaq's house. Soon Attalaq
himself appeared. He was exultant.

"Ha! Ha!" he laughed. "Methinks that is the way to treat a woman!"
Then with swollen-up gusto he told them all about it. Tiring of being
alone he determined to carry off Ahningnetty. "A woman's mind is as
the wind--it constantly changeth," he said. "Women should be driven as
the dogs." Ahningnetty, still weeping, still protesting, came to the
door. Attalaq turned fiercely upon her and struck her in the face.
Then he laughed again. The girl screamed.

"Well," he said, turning to her. "I carried thee here--if thou wouldst
return thou canst walk back. Eh?" The girl cowered away, but on her
face there was the semblance of a pleased expression. The other women
regarded her with a tinge of envy.

"'Tis not often in these days a lover careth sufficiently to carry a
maid away," said an aged crone.

"In the days of old there were men like Attalaq," said a younger woman,
admiringly.

"Where is Papik?" one asked. He was not to be seen.

"Dost thou not wish to return to thy father?" Annadoah asked
Ahningnetty, approaching her.

The girl shook her head. Much as she had protested, she was
unquestionably pleased by the forcible abduction.

One of the gossips, desiring to impart the unpleasant news to Papik,
had gone to his house.

"Papik sits alone," she called, on her return. "And when I told him
Ahningnetty hath been carried away by Attalaq, he replied, ''Tis well!
'Tis well!' And then he showed me his hands--they were frozen--frozen!
Verily, he would now be a sorry husband to provide for a wife."

"Papik's fingers frozen!" took up the others. "Unhappy Papik."

"He sobs and weeps--he sobs and weeps," said the old woman. "He saith
the dreaded misfortune hath come, and the days of his skill on the hunt
are over!"

"Long fingers, short hunt; long nose--short life," remarked Maisanguaq,
sententiously.

Attalaq, happy in his conquest, was broad enough to be generous. He
declared that Papik should never want as long as he could shoot the
arrow. Generous-hearted, many of the others joined in and bits of
blubber were soon offered the lonely Papik, as he sat, nursing his
frozen members, in his house. The mishap was tragic, for, his hands
injured, he had lost not only his skill in the hunt but his ability to
protect himself in case of accidents. And