Now Kotuko, who drew very well in the Inuit fashion, scratched pictures of all these adventures on a long, flat piece of ivory with a hole at one end. When he and the girl went north to Ellesmere Land in the year of the Wonderful Open Winter, he left the picture-story with Kadlu, who lost it in the shingle when his dog-sleigh broke down one summer on the beach of Lake Netilling at Nikosiring, and there a Lake Inuit found it next spring and sold it to a man at Imigen who was interpreter on a Cumberland Sound whaler, and he sold it to Hans Olsen, who was afterward a quartermaster on board a big steamer that took tourists to the North Cape in Norway. When the tourist season was over, the steamer ran between London and Australia, stopping at Ceylon, and there Olsen sold the ivory to a Cingalese jeweler for two imitation sapphires. I found it under some rubbish in a house at Colombo, and have translated it from one end to the other. "ANGUTIVUN TINA" [This is a very free translation of the Song of the Returning Hunter, as the men used to sing it after seal-spearing. The Inuit always repeat things over and over again.] Our gloves are stiff with the frozen blood, Our furs with the drifted snow, As we come in with the seal--the seal! In from the edge of the floe. _Au jana! Aua! Oha! Haq!_ And the yelping dog-teams go, And the long whips crack, and the men come back, Back from the edge of the floe! We tracked our seal to his secret place, We heard him scratch below, We made our mark, and we watched beside, Out on the edge of the floe. We raised our lance when he rose to breathe, We drove it downward--so! And we played him thus, and we killed him thus Out on the edge of the floe. Our gloves are glued with the frozen blood, Our eyes with the drifting snow; But we come back to our wives again, Back from the edge of the floe! _Au jana! Aua! Oha! Haq! And the loaded dog-teams go, And the wives can hear their men come back, Back from the edge of the floe!_ [Illustration] RED DOG For our white and our excellent nights--for the nights of swift running, Fair ranging, far-seeing, good hunting, sure cunning! For the smells of the dawning, untainted, ere dew has departed! For the rush through the mist, and the quarry blind-started! For the cry of our mates when the sambhur has wheeled and is standing at bay, For the risk and the riot of night! For the sleep at the lair-mouth by day, It is met, and we go to the fight. Bay! O bay! [Illustration] RED DOG