Of course he had one or two enemies. Who has not? There were a few who
envied him his physical powers. There were some who envied him his
moral influence. None envied him his intellectual superiority, for they
did not understand it. There was one who not only envied but hated him.
This was Eemerk, a mean-spirited, narrow-minded fellow, who could not
bear to play what is styled second fiddle.

Eemerk was big enough--over six feet--but he wanted to be bigger. He
was stout enough, but wanted to be stouter. He was influential too, but
wanted to reign supreme. This, of course, was not possible while there
existed a taller, stouter, and cleverer man than himself. Even if
Eemerk had been the equal of Chingatok in all these respects, there
would still have remained one difference of character which would have
rendered equality impossible.

It was this: our young giant was unselfish and modest. Eemerk was
selfish and vain-glorious. When the latter killed a seal he always kept
the tit-bits for himself. Chingatok gave them to his mother, or to any
one else who had a mind to have them. And so in regard to everything.

Chingatok was not a native of the region in which we introduce him to
the reader. He and the tribe, or rather part of the tribe, to which he
belonged, had travelled from the far north; so far north that nobody
knew the name of the land from which they had come. Even Chingatok
himself did not know it. Being unacquainted with geography, he knew no
more about his position on the face of this globe than a field-mouse or
a sparrow.

But the young giant had heard a strange rumour, while in his far-off
country, which had caused his strong intellect to ponder, and his huge
heart to beat high. Tribes who dwelt far to the south of his northern
home had told him that other tribes, still further south, had declared
that the people who dwelt to the south of them had met with a race of
men who came to them over the sea on floating islands; that these
islands had something like trees growing out of them, and wings which
moved about, which folded and expanded somewhat like the wings of the
sea-gull; that these men's faces were whiter than Eskimo faces; that
they wore skins of a much more curious kind than sealskins, and that
they were amazingly clever with their hands, talked a language that no
one could understand, and did many wonderful things that nobody could
comprehend.

A longing, wistful expression used