Page:A Wild-Goose Chase - Balmer - 1915.djvu/277

Rh dined, not with uniform delicacy, on the donated meat. The messenger who had brought the meal went out; and soon two seal hunters, old men, entered.

They squatted before their guests, one silently shaping a new wooden shaft for his spear, the other speaking with Hedon and Koehler, who understood his tongue.

"What have they come for?" Latham asked nervously.

"Don't worry," Koehler returned; "they haven't come with an eviction or to cut off our credit at the butcher's."

Eric spoke to Margaret, indicating the hunter working on his spear. "I asked him to come and show us the next time he was shaping a handle."

"Why?" She observed the man with closer interest.

"Look at his blue eyes. No Eskimo of pure blood ever has light eyes. See, his hair is not black, as usual. There's been no contact of this tribe with the whites in any historic time."

"Then how does he have light eyes?"