Page:A Wild-Goose Chase - Balmer - 1915.djvu/292

278 often out of the igloos to look for signs of the return of the men who had stolen the meat and of those who had gone after them. But the moon was beginning to sink in the sky before, far away, some one saw four men with a team of dogs and a sledge approaching. Then behind it appeared three men and another dog team and sledge; then three more men and another team.

At the sight of these alarm ran round the houses and spread to the spearmen on the ice. The Eskimos gathered before the village and, excited and watchful, waited for the sledges to draw near. Before these came close, two of the men with the first sledge ran out to one side and signalled, so that the Eskimos knew that those two were their tribesmen and that they were returning with strangers, all friendly. When a short distance off, the sledges halted and four of the men came forward to meet four from the village.

Margaret stood beside McNeal and Koehler, watching the strangers approach for the parley. During the hours since the discovery that the seal meat had been stolen and Latham