Page:GB Lancaster--law-bringer.djvu/454

452 "Je me sers votre couteau, Dick," she cried. "You no mind? Tres bien. I did myself out with it, too. Do you know what make happen to me with Maktuk this afternoon when we go to shoot seals round the blow-hole? It was so much cold, and the parka collar would not keep up round my face. And Maktuk he did make spit on the two sides and hold them togezzer. Dieu! They freeze like one dans un moment. And they had to hold me the fire over to melt me when I come back. I did laugh."

Baxter laughed also, going on with his careful setting-out of native births, deaths, and marriages; his tabulation of the tonnage, names of officers, and of boats in the Bay; his details of patrols, of the few white men hunting or prospecting along the Arctic, and of the state of health and contentment of the settlement. All these data were to go south with Dick, and also a little package of letters and native carvings for Baxter's Miralma.

"I guess they know a thing or two," he said. "And I guess reports are a mighty different thing to what they must ha' been at Herschel before the missionaries and us came along. Drinkin', an' all sorts o' rows with the whalers, an' no law or religion anywhere at all. And now those Kogmollocks hold their services among themselves regular, and every boat's crew has to be aboard by ten o'clock, and no drinkin' allowed. This sort o' thing's a satisfaction to man, I reckon."

"Exactly. And so is the knowledge that we ultimately convert the heathen by killing them out. There are about one hundred and twenty Kogmollocks now, aren't there? And much the same of Nunatalmutes? A few years ago there were four hundred Kogmollocks. Oh, we will convert them all right, Baxter, for that is the way in which we conquer our territories. We can't do much with the Arctic when we get it all to ourselves without a native left to it. But we will get it. That is the glory of Empire. And we can't do without Empire."

"But it is better for them to be converted" began Baxter vaguely.

"Indubitably. Perhaps the Esquimaux consider measles and whooping cough rather drastic missionaries. But that