The maiden who spoke was extremely thin.

“Ha, ha!” Papik returned.  “How wilt thou warm thy husband when the winter comes?  How wilt thou warm the little baby when thou art like the bear after a famished winter, thou maid of skin and bones!”

“Long-nose!  Long-nose! may thy nose freeze!” she called.

The other maidens laughed and gibed at her.  In anger she fled into her tupik, or tent.  Being very thin she, too, like Papik, suffered from the bar sinister of nature.  For, in selecting a wife, a native comes down to the practical consideration of choosing a maid who will likely grow fat, so that, during the long cold winters, her body will be a sort of human radiator to keep the husband and children warm.  So love, you see, in this region, is largely influenced by an instinctive knowledge of natural economies.

As he launched his kayak, Ootah turned toward Annadoah.

“Thou art the sun, Annadoah!” he called.

“And thou the moon, Ootah,” she replied.  “I shall await thee, Ootah!  Bring thou back fat and blubber, Ootah, to warm thy fires, Ootah.”  And she laughed gaily.  Then she turned her back to Ootah, bent her head coyly and did not turn around again.  To Ootah this was a good augury—­for when a maiden turns her back upon a suitor she thinks favorably of him.  This is the custom.

Ootah felt a new strength in his veins.  He felt himself master of all the prey in the sea.

At the entrance of the tent of Sipsu, the angakoq, or native magician, stood Maisanguaq, one of the rivals for the hand of Annadoah.  His face twisted with jealous rage as he heard Annadoah calling to the speeding Ootah.  His narrow eyes glittered vindictively.  Turning on his heel he entered Sipsu’s dwelling place.

Sipsu sat on the floor near his oil lamp.  When Maisanguaq entered he did not stir.  He was as still, as grotesque, as evil-looking as the tortured idols of the Chinese; like theirs his eyes were beadlike, expressionless, dull; such are the eyes of dead seal.  His face was brown and cracked like old leather, and was covered with a crust of dirt; his gray-streaked hair was matted and straggled over his face; it teemed with lice.  He held his knotty hands motionless over the flame of his lamp.  His nails were long and curled like sharp talons.  As Maisanguaq saw him he could not repress a shudder.

Sipsu was feared, and as correspondingly hated, by the tribe.  They brought to him, it is true, offerings of musk ox meat and walrus blubber when members fell ill.  But that was the urge of necessity.  Of late years Sipsu’s conjurations for recovery had resulted in few cures; his heart was not in them; but with greater vehemence did he enter upon seances of malediction.  With almost unerring exactness he prophesied many deaths.  For this the tribe did not love him.  Nor did Sipsu love the tribe; especially did he hate the youthful, and those who courted and were newly wed.  When Maisanguaq touched his shoulder, he turned with a growl.