frightful darkness roared; they felt the heaving sea under them. And
while they struggled in their brief death-to-death fight, the floe was
tossed steadily onward._"
The long night began to lift its sable pall, and at midday, for a brief
period, a pale glow appeared above the eastern horizon. In this brief
spell of daily increasing twilight the desolate region took on a
grey-blue hue; the natives, as they appeared outside their shelters,
looked like greyish spectres. Ootah felt the grim grey desolation
color his soul.
He had regained his strength, and his wounds had healed with the
remarkable rapidity that nature effects in people who lead a primitive
life; only the hurt in his heart remained. Annadoah had often visited
him, and while he lay on his bed of furs she had boiled _ahmingmah_
meat and made hot water over the lamp very solicitously. Once,
half-hesitating, she looked into his eyes, and as though she had a
confession to make, said quietly:
"Thou art very brave, Ootah."
This pleased him--once she had said he had the heart of a woman.
He had thrilled when she soothed him, and now he was half sorry that
the injuries no longer needed attention. He loved Annadoah more deeply
than ever, and his greatest concern was for her. He might win
her--yes, perhaps some day, but he could not forget that, whenever she
had touched him with tenderness, she thought of Olafaksoah.
Standing before his igloo, musing upon these things, Ootah espied in
the semi-light a dark speck moving on the ice.
"_Nannook_! (_Bear_)" he called, and the men rushed from their houses.
Without pausing to get his gun Ootah ran down to the ice-sheeted shore.
Nature, as if repenting of her bitterness, had sent milder weather, and
the bear, emerging from its winter retreat, made its way over the ice
in search of seal. Lifting his harpoon, Ootah attacked the bear. It
rose on its haunches and parried the thrusts. A half-dozen lean dogs
came dashing from the shelters and jumped about the creature. The bear
grunted viciously--the dogs howled. The bear was lean and faint from
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