spread the long haired deerskin robes, which were to serve as the inner
lining of the shelters, hair side out, which was also wrong. He had once
more been relegated to the background. This time he had not cared, for
it gave him an opportunity to study his fellow travelers. They were for
the most part a dark and sullen bunch. Not understanding Johnny's
language, they did not attempt to talk with him, but certain gloomy
glances seemed to tell him that, though his money had been accepted by
them, there was still some secret reason why he might have been
traveling in safer company.

This, however, was more a feeling than an idea based on any overt act of
the natives, and Johnny tried to shake it off. That he might do this
more quickly, he gave himself over to the study of these strange nomads.
Their dress was a one-piece suit made of short haired deer skins. Men,
women and children dressed alike, with the exception that very small
children were sewed into their garments, hands, feet and all and were
strapped on the sleds like bundles.

The food was strange to the American. One needed a good appetite to
enjoy it. Great twenty-five pound white fish were produced from skin
bags and sliced off to be eaten raw. Reindeer meat was stewed in copper
kettles. Hard tack was soaked in water and mixed with reindeer suet. Tea
from the ever present Russian tea kettle and seal oil from a sewed up
seal skin took the place of drink and relish. The tea was good, the
seal oil unspeakable, a liquid not even to be smelled of by a white man,
let alone tasted.

By the second day Johnny had found himself confining his associations to
one person, who, to all appearances, was a fellow passenger, and not a
member of the tribe. He had learned to pitch his own igloo and hers. Not
five hours before he had hewn away a hard bank of snow and built there a
shelf for his bed. When his igloo was completed he had erected a second
not many feet away. This was for his fellow passenger. In case anything
should happen he felt that he would like to be near her, and she had
shown by many little signs that she shared his feelings in this.

"In case something happened," Johnny reflected drowsily. He had a
feeling that, sooner or later, something was going to happen. There was
something altogether mysterious about the actions of these Chukches,
especially one great sullen fellow, who had come skulking about Johnny's
igloo just before he had turned in.

These native