Page:Eskimo Folk-Tales (1921).djvu/160

140 And now he worked away with him until the spirit came. And when this had happened, the spirit finder declared: “It would seem that spirits have here found a difficult task. He is up in a place between two great cliffs, and two old inland folk are looking after him.”

Then they stopped calling spirits, and wandered away towards the east. They walked and walked, and at last they sighted a lot of houses. And when they came nearer, they saw the smoke coming out from all the smoke holes. It was the heat from inside coming out so. And the father looked in through a window, and saw that they were quarrelling about his child, and the child was crying. “Who is to look after him?”

So he heard them saying inside the house; each one was eager to have the child. When the father saw this, he was very angry.

And the people inside asked the child:

“What would you like to eat?”

“No,” said the child.

“Will you have seal meat?”

“No,” said the child.

And there was nothing he cared to have. Therefore they asked him at last:

“Do you want to go home very much?”

ÁngángujukÁngángŭjuk [sic] answered quickly: “Yes.” And his father was very greatly angered by now. And said to those with him:

“Try now to magic them to sleep.”

And now the wizard began calling down a magic sleep upon those in the hut, and one by one they sank to sleep and began to snore. And fewer and fewer remained awake; at last there were only two. But then one of those two began to yawn, and at last rolled over and snored.

And now the great finder of hidden things began calling down sleep with all his might over that one remaining. And at last he too began to move towards the sleeping place. Then he began to yawn a little, and at last he also rolled over.

Now Ángángŭjuk's father went in quickly, and now he caught up his son. But now the child had no clothes on. And looking for them, he saw them hung up on the drying frame. But the house was so high that they had to poke down the clothes with poles.