Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 69).djvu/167

 as someone threw a seal-hook into a dead animal and drew it to the ice. They crowded about it, their excited yells increasing. Five minutes later they were devouring the steaming flesh, stopping often to toss bits to the dogs, who gulped it ravenously.

The missionary bowed his head, a great gratitude, a great wonder in his heart. God had listened. God had heard. The famine was over.

He brought his Bible and, standing under the swinging light of the lantern, translated page after page.

Like the blizzard, that day's hunting was unprecedented in In-ga-lee-nay. Thirty seals and a sixty-foot whale fell to the lot of the hunters. There was food in abundance and oil for the lamps and for the torches that fluttered yellow lights over the ice-bound shores where the people worked joyously over the kill. All day the missionary moved among them. He was happy, elated. They were his flock, his children. In the flush of his joy he had to exercise considerable self-control to keep from calling attention to the glory of God's mercy. The following day—Saturday—was also filled with unusual activities, but he permitted himself to speak of the meeting of thanksgiving which he would hold for them on Sunday. The Eskimos nodded and laughed in answer to his enthusiasm. Light-hearted, variable, they had already Vol. lxix.—12.