imated. Davie Summers
and his master, Mivins, shone conspicuous as bargain makers, and carried
to their respective bunks a large assortment of native articles. Fred,
and Tom Singleton, too, were extremely successful, and in a few hours a
sufficient amount of skins were bartered to provide them with clothing
for the winter. The quantity of fresh meat obtained, however, was not
enough to last them a week, for the Esquimaux lived from hand to mouth,
and the crew felt that they must depend on their own exertions in the
hunt for this indispensable article of food, without which they could
not hope to escape the assaults of the sailors' dread enemy, scurvy.

Meetuck's duties were not light upon this occasion, as you may suppose.

"Arrah! then, _don't_ ye onderstand me?" cried O'Riley, in an excited
tone, to a particularly obtuse and remarkably fat Esquimau, who was
about as sharp at a bargain as himself.--"Hallo! Meetuck, come here, do,
and tell this pork-faced spalpeen what I'm sayin'. Sure I couldn't spake
plainer av I wos to try."

"I'll never get this fellow to understand," said Fred.--"Meetuck, my
boy, come here and explain to him."

"Ho! Meetuck," shouted Peter Grim, "give this old blockhead a taste o'
your lingo, I never met his match for stupidity."

"I do believe that this rascal wants the 'ole of this ball o' twine for
the tusk of a sea-'oss.--Meetuck! w'ere's Meetuck? I say, give us a 'and
'ere, like a good fellow," cried Mivins; but Mivins cried in vain, for
at that moment Saunders had violently collared the interpreter and dragged
him towards an old Esquimau woman, whose knowledge of Scotch had not
proved sufficient to enable her to understand the energetically-expressed
words of the second mate.

During all this time the stars had been twinkling brightly in the sky,
and the aurora shed a clear light upon the scene, while the air was
still calm and cold; but a cloud or two now began to darken the horizon
to the north-east, and a puff of wind blew occasionally over the icy
plain, and struck with such chilling influence on the frames of the
traffickers, that with one consent they closed their business for that
day, and the Esquimaux prepared to return to their snow village, which
was about ten miles to the southward, and which village had been erected
by them only three days previous to their discovery of the ship.

"I'm sorry to find," remarked the captain to those who were standing
near him, "that these po