According to Makuik bear's-meat is greatly prized because of its toughness. It is considered effeminate to eat tender meat. The sound of an Eskimo meal is not unlike a Red-Cross bandage-tearing session. A study of the photograph under the microscope clearly shows the vitamines winding their curiously spiral course up and down the meal. The absence of table manners is not remarkable when one considers the absence of tables. [Illustration: Dinner is Served] Swiftly and noiselessly a large block of snow at the base of the cairn itself moved to one side disclosing a laughing face, the same lovely countenance upon which I had gazed several weeks before. The wearer listened for a full minute with bird-like intentness, then leaped lightly out and straightened up, a long-limbed, graceful creature wearing the conventional summer furs of the Northern Eskimo. Her hood was thrown back showing a glimpse of entrancing shoulder but what dazzled me most were the starry blue eyes, fair skin and wealth of molten, golden hair! Her first act was to circumnavigate the cairn which she did with the same silent rapidity that marked her every motion. She then made directly for the lure, bending over it, touching it cautiously and finally raising it and burying her face in its scarlet folds, while her laughs rang out muffled but intoxicating. This was my chance! Bursting through my prison walls I rushed toward her while Swank, by arrangement, crashed out of Pease, darted to the entrance, slid the block into place and sat on it. I was upon her before she had a chance to move. "_Akalok!_" I cried (the Northern dialect for "friend"), as we rolled over and over in the snow. My old football training stood me in good stead for I had made a perfect diving tackle. Inwardly blessing the name of Ted Coy, I pinned the lithe, palpitating body to the snow, repeating more tenderly the soft appellation, "_Akalok, Akalok_." But my triumph was shortlived. For the first time her lips moved and from between them burst a wild, frantic cry, strangely familiar to my ears. "Makuik! Makuik!" At the repetition I heard a shriek of pain from Swank and glanced over my shoulder in time to see him rise in the air. The ice block was shattered beneath him and I saw an ugly stub of seal-spear, thrust accurately where he had formerly sat. Directly back of him leaped an ape-like figure as swart and scowling as a Japanese war mask. He carried a terrific weapon, a keen-edged blubber cutter, with which he made directly at me. At ten paces I recognized him but too late to stop the impending blow. Firing over my shoulder, a tricky shot at best, I shattered the bone blade into a thousand fragments, at the same instant jumping to my feet and shouting--"Makuik! Tapok!" I had given my name, "Tapok," the Icelandic pronunciation, and at the sound he stopped like a man shot. "Makuik!" I cried again.