Suddenly the whale came up to blow again, not far away. The men all fired their guns at once, aiming at its heart, which was deep in its body and as big as a barrel. [Illustration: a Copper Eskimo bow] It took everybody in the village to pull the whale out onto the ice. They used a block and tackle they had got from the white sailors. Then, after the villagers had cut up the whale, they held a great feast. There was plenty of meat and blubber for all--including the dogs--and whalebone to be traded for more bullets and guns. NEIGHBORS Not very far from Hilltop's village lived people that the white men called Copper Eskimos because they had learned to use copper for some of their tools. [Illustration: A Siberian Eskimo teacher uses books written in the Eskimo language.] Other neighbors along the coast did a new kind of work after white men came. In their high, waterproof boots, they waded into the ocean and chipped away the black rocks near the edge of the water. The rocks were really coal which the white men wanted and taught them to use. Eskimos have always kept on learning how to make the most of the land in which they live. [Illustration: A Copper Eskimo cache] GREENLANDERS Nearly half the Eskimos in the world now live in Greenland. Not many of them have ever seen a snow house, although most of their huge island is covered with ice. [Illustration: With luck a North Greenlander can catch a hundred or more small birds in an hour.] Greenland Eskimos have known white men for more than nine hundred years, but they still hunt in many of the old ways. In the northern part of the island, hunters use nets to catch little birds called auks, which come there by the millions on the exact day the last snow melts in spring. It takes eight or nine auks to make a good meal for one person! [Illustration] Sometimes Greenlanders paddle their kayaks out to icebergs and perch high up, on the lookout for seals. Instead of being just pure white, the icebergs shine with beautiful tints of blue and green and purple. Greenlanders' clothes, too, are bright, embroidered and decorated with many of the colors of the Aurora Borealis. [Illustration: People in West Greenland dress like this. Some women pull their hair so tight that it comes out and they often get bald over the ears.] [Illustration: Eskimos are such good mechanics they quickly learned to fit outboard motors on umiaks.] TROUBLE AHEAD Traders began to visit the Eskimos in Alaska a long time ago. The Eskimos sold them caribou meat to eat and sealskins--and whalebone. When the traders explained what the whalebone was for, the Eskimos could hardly stop laughing.