Page:Eskimo Folk-Tales (1921).djvu/153

 THE TWO LITTLE OUTCASTS

HERE were two little boys and they had no father and no mother, and they went out every day hunting ptarmigan, and they had never any weapons save a bow. And when they had been out hunting ptarmigan, the men of that place were always very eager to take their catch.

One day they went out hunting ptarmigan as usual, but there were none. On their way, they came to some wild and difficult cliffs. And they looked down from that place into a ravine, and saw at the bottom a thing that looked like a stone. They went down towards it, and when they came nearer, it was a little house. And they went nearer still and came right to it. They climbed up on to the roof, and when they looked down through the air hole in the roof, they saw a little boy on the floor with a cutting-board for a kayak and a stick for a paddle. They called down to him, and he looked up, but then they hid themselves. When they looked down again, he was there as before, playing at being a man in a kayak. A second time they called to him, and then he ran to hide. And they went in then, and found him, sobbing a little, and pressing himself close in against the wall.

And they asked him:

"Do you live here all alone?"

And he answered: "No, my mother went out early this morning, and she is out now, as usual."

They said:

"We have come to be here with you because you are all alone."

And when they said this, he ventured to come out a little from the wall.

In the afternoon, the boy went out again and again and when he did so, they looked round the inside of the house, which was covered with fox skins, blue and white.

At last the boy came in, and said: