hou
not make garments for Olafaksoah? And do we not now shudder from the
cold? 'Twas thou who put the madness into the head of Ootah, the
strongest of the tribe. Many are the maidens who are husbandless and
yet Ootah pined for thee. Why didst thou not choose Ootah? Then he
would have remained and prevented the thievery of the strangers, we
should not have been robbed, and he would not have had to go far unto
the mountains, where the spirits have struck him in their wrath? Nay,
nay, thou didst make the men of our tribe sick with thoughts of thee.
They have quarrelled among themselves. And before the white men came,
did they not reproach us, their wives and their betrothed, with thy
name and the vaunted skill of thee? Thou art as the woman with an iron
tail, she who killed men when they came to her, their skins flushed
with love. Thou destroyest men! Thou didst send Ootah and Koolotah to
the mountains! And they have perished! _Ioh-h_! _Ioh-h_!"

Entering her igloo two or three at a time they reproachfully recited in
chiding chants to Annadoah the story of her life; how her worthy mother
and august grand-parents had died, hoping she would choose a husband
from the hunters, and how she had refused all who sought her; they
told, with reiterant detail, how she had caused quarrels among the men,
and sent many of the warriors in their competitive hunts to death; and
how, finally, when Ootah, the bravest of the hunters, wanted to wed
her, she had chosen a foreign man, who deserted her and left her a
burden on the tribe. Sometimes they shook her roughly.

To the native women the brutality and virility of the men from the
south exert a potent appeal; and the fact that Olafaksoah had chosen
Annadoah many moons since still made their mouth taste bitter. This
jealousy rankling within them, they now with angry exultation took
occasion to mock and abuse her. The girl lay still and did not reply.
Her heart indeed seemed like a bird lying dead in wintertime.

Then one of three women who stood by Annadoah's couch leaned forward
and whispered a terrible thing. The others looked at the girl and
fear, mingled with hatred, shone in their eyes.

"Thou sayest this thing," said one, "how dost thou know?"

And the other, pointing accusingly to the girl who lay before them, her
face hidden in her arms, replied:

"The night my baby died . . . I heard her voice."

They stood in silence, rigid, implacable, bitter.

During t