“You have asked me whether I went far over the mountains?  Yea, we travelled many sleeps, yet we scarcely rested.  The world was white about us.  The spirits carried us over dark places in the hills, wherein Perdlugssuaq makes his home.  But he did not strike.  We were borne over abysses.  The spirits of one’s ancestors are often kind.  We went through the world of the fog, she who was the wife of that hill spirit who carried the dead from their graves and ate them.  Yea, she passed beneath our feet.  We came to the high mountains.  We passed upward where the eyes of strange beasts glared upon us.  I was afraid.  But I called upon my father.  Then the spirits of the great dead came down upon us.  They wove kamiks and ahttees of fire.  Their eyes burned as the great light of the stars.  They did not regard us.  We came unto the ahmingmah . . .  But upon our return the hill spirits who live in the caves wakened and struck with their great harpoons.  They shook the mountains.  Then the good ancestors carried me through sila—­the world of the air—­yea, my dogs, my sledge, and the ahmingmah meat.  I had called upon those who went before me.  I woke at the bottom of the mountain, three of my dogs were crushed, my sledge was broken . . .  I lay there a while . . .  I slept again . . . often . . .  Then I lashed the sled, ate a little of the ahmingmah meat, and came . . . hither . . .  How . . .  Ootah knows not . . .  It was hard at times . . .  I could hardly walk . . . the ice moved about me . . . always . . . so—­” He described a circle with his hand.  “But I bethought me of Annadoah—­” he smiled—­“and I said I go to Annadoah . . .  That is how I came . . .  I said Annadoah is hungry—­yea, as I said it when the eyes looked at me on the mountains, when the hill spirits made my heart grow cold, when Koolotah desired to return . . .  Koolotah—­he hath gone . . .  Koolotah’s dogs are gone . . .  But I called upon my dead father, my dead grandfather, and the older ones—­and I thought of Annadoah.”  He leaned toward her yearningly, his voice trembling.  Fearfully the girl drew away.  “It is she who brought the ahmingmah meat,” he said.  “It is she who led me to the ahmingmah.  Yea, she brings you the ahmingmah meat.  For the thought of her brings Ootah back after the spirits strike . . .  It is she, who lives in the heart of Ootah, who has done all this . . .  But you are hungry.  Come!”

He rose slowly and crept through the underground tunnel leading from the igloo.  The others followed.  Without, most of the tribe were waiting.  At Ootah’s command the men unlashed the sledge-load of meat, and the division began.  To Annadoah Ootah gave one-eighth of the load, enough to last by frugal use for more than two moons, or months.  Among the others, of whom there were about twenty-five, the remainder was proportionately divided.  For himself Ootah reserved only as much as he gave the others.