ch her lover was lying, shivering with cold, and crying with
impatience. Quick as a fox to pounce upon an unsuspecting rabbit was
Metak to pounce upon the unsuspecting girl. He seized her, and started
for his sledge. She screamed, she pulled his hair, she tore his fur, she
bit his fingers; but the valiant Metak held manfully to his purpose, and
would not let her go. He reached the sledge, and put her on it; he tied
her there, and, springing on himself, he whipped up his dogs, and
started for his home. But the refractory damsel would not stay tied. She
cut the lashings with her teeth, she seized the whip out of Metak's
hands, she pushed Metak off the sledge, and sent him sprawling on the
snow; and then she wheeled the dogs around, and fairly made them fly
again on the backward track to her father's hut, where she crawled once
more into her nest of furs, and where the luckless Metak was ever
afterwards content to let her stay, satisfied that he was no match for
her.

"This story was told by Eatum one evening in the snow hut, while Old
Grim was present, and it was evidently a standing joke against him. He
did not seem to relish it at all, for he went out of the hut as if
driven away by their shouts of laughter. I could not understand the
language well enough to fully appreciate the story at the time, but
afterward I got Eatum to repeat it to me.

"It proved that the name Old Grim, that the Dean and I had given Metak,
was even more appropriate than we thought; for it seemed that he was
generally known as the man who laughed with his insides without the help
of his face.

"Altogether these savages were a most singular people. They seemed to be
happy and cheerful all the time, never caring for anything, so long as
they had enough to eat, and plenty of time to tell stories about each
other and make each other laugh. But what struck the Dean and I most
strangely was that they should be living in this happy state away out
there on the sea, a long distance from land, really burrowing in the
snow for shelter, and roaming about for food like beasts of prey, and
yet enjoying themselves and amusing themselves after the fashion of
civilized human beings, so far as their relations to one another were
concerned.

"'Well, I do declare,' said the Dean, 'this is an odd party, to be sure.
I'm going to christen them, Hardy.'

"'Christen them, or Christian them'? I asked.

"'Both, perhaps,' answered the Dean; 'but for the present I mea