Page:A Wild-Goose Chase - Balmer - 1915.djvu/281

Rh forth his hand to receive his spear back. When it was returned to him he looked down at his carving and studied it patiently, and then, more puzzled, gazed up at the strange white people and smiled. His Eskimo companion rose to go and the spear-maker followed. For a moment, before crouching to go out through the low snow tunnel of the igloo, the man straightened and stood before his comrade, who was a dark-eyed, black-haired man of the short Eskimo type. The blue-eyed man was not much taller; but for the instant he seemed to tower over the dark-eyed native, and his figure was straighter. Suddenly there seemed a sternness, almost a majesty, in the spear-maker's bearing entirely absent from that of his companion. He looked once more about the company staring at him, and as he met their gaze a gleam of fire flashed from his eyes, his lips tightened and straightened. Then he stooped and on all fours crawled after his companion out of the snow hut.

The whites, left alone, looked at one another. Had they seen there before them a son of the