ger cooking here than it would there, and we may as well
carry the birds inside as out."

They were engaged in eating their meal when Jack suddenly gave an angry
growl, and looking up they saw a party of a dozen Samoyedes with bows
and arrows at a distance of fifty yards behind them. They sprang to
their feet.

"Shall I shoot?" Luka asked.

"No, no, Luka, their intentions may be friendly. Besides, though we
might kill three or four of them they would riddle us with arrows. We
had best meet them as friends."

When the Samoyedes came up Luka gave them the ordinary salutation of
friendship.

"Where come from?" the man who seemed to be the leader of the natives
asked suspiciously.

"A long way from the east," Luka said, pointing in that direction.

"Who are you?"

"Ostjak," Luka said, knowing that the Samoyedes would have heard of that
tribe, but would know nothing of his own.

"Who this?" the native asked, pointing to Godfrey.

"A friend of Ostjaks," Luka said, "come to hunt and shoot. I come with
him."

"This Samoyede country," the native said; "not want Ostjaks here."

"We do no harm," Luka said. "We go west, far along, not want Samoyede
country. Buy milk of Samoyedes. Good friends."

The Samoyedes talked together, and then the leader said "Come!" Without
any appearance of hesitation Godfrey and Luka set off with the natives.
Their language, though differing from that of the northern Ostjaks, was
sufficiently alike for them to be able to understand each other.

"Do you think they mean to be friendly?" Godfrey asked in Russian.

"I don't know," Luka replied. "Perhaps not made up their minds yet."

"They are going down to the coast, that is a comfort, Luka; they are
going to the west of our boats. I suppose they have an encampment there.
I expect they heard my gun and have been following us at a distance
until they saw us sit down."

"Must have seen them," Luka said.

"Only one may have been following us, and may have sent the others back
to fetch up the rest from their tents. Well, it does not matter now they
have got us. If they ask where we came from, as I expect they will, you
had better tell them, Luka, we came in a boat. They will guess it
without our telling, and will very likely look for it. It is better to
make no concealment."

Two hours' walking brought them to a little valley, in the middle of
which ran a small stream. They followed it down for half a mile, and
then at a sudden turn the