“Thy igloo is cold, thy lamp unlighted,” Annadoah insisted.  “Come!  The others will prepare thy couch and light thy lamps.  Until then my bed is thine.  It is warm within.”

With difficulty Ootah bent low and followed Annadoah through the underground entrance of her igloo.  His dogs, which the men had unhitched, and as many as could enter the small enclosure, followed.  The stench of the oil lamp at first almost suffocated him.  He sank to Annadoah’s couch from sheer weakness, and his dogs, licking his face and hands, crept about him.

Meanwhile Annadoah began melting snow over her lamp.  The others plied Ootah with questions.  Did he go far into the mountains?  Were there many ahmingmah?  Did Koolotah perish?  Was he in the mountains when the spirits struck?  To all of this he could only move his head in response.  While he sipped the warm water gratefully, Annadoah cut away his leather boots and bathed his injuries.  His flesh was torn and one ankle was sprained—­by a miracle not a bone had been broken in the fall.  With unguents left years before by white men, Annadoah treated his many cuts and bruises and bound them securely with clean leather.  After he lay back on the couch she bathed his face, and rubbed into the wounds salves which her father had given to her mother and which for years had been preciously preserved.

Ootah lay with his eyes closed; he seemed to float in the auroral skies without, in the very happy land of the dead.  He forgot the pain in his limbs, the furnace in his forehead.  He felt only the soothing touch of Annadoah’s dear hands, and her breath at times very near, fanning his face; he heard her voice murmuring to the onlooking natives.  Not satisfied with these ministrations, in which they really had little faith, the others presently brought a young angakoq, one better loved than the dead Sipsu.  For being young he had not prophesied many deaths.

All moved away as the magician began beating his membrane drum over Ootah’s body.  Working himself into frenzy, he called upon his familiar spirits.  For, according to their belief, illness, and the suffering resultant from wounds, are actually caused by the spirits of the various members of the body falling out of harmony.  Then the angakoq must persuade his friends in the other world to restore peace among the spirits of the human hands, feet, head, or whatever limbs may be affected.  The soul, or great spirit, they say resides in one’s shadow, and sometimes this falls out of agreement with the minor spirits of the body.  Then one is in bad shape, indeed.

For half an hour the chant and dance continued.  Meanwhile Ootah opened his eyes and often smiled at Annadoah.  He was better, he told them, and motioned the angakoq to go.  He bade Annadoah sit beside him.  He felt unquestionably better.