from the experience of ages
all knew that, sooner or later, he was doomed to a comparatively early
death.

During the first period of the night, and after Ootah's first capture,
several prowling bears were shot. The howl of occasional wolves was
heard in the mountains; then all the bears disappeared, the hunger of
the wolves was stilled.

When the third moon rose not a thing stirred outside the igloos. A
glacial silence gripped the northern world. In their shelters the
natives clustered together, warming one another with their breathing
and the heat of their bodies. They lacked the courage even to speak.

Day by day their supply of food had run low. Day by day they decreased
their portions; their cheeks sunk, hunger burned in their eyes. To
save the precious fuel they burned only one lamp in their houses; they
were unable to sleep because of the intense cold. Finally their food
gave out. From his store Ootah silently doled out allotments until
starvation confronted him. One by one the dogs were eaten. And this
caused a dull ache, for the men loved their dogs only a little less
than they did their wives and children. The quaking fear of the long
hours slowly gave way to a dull lethargy. In their igloos, where
single lamps smoked, they sat, and to keep up their circulation and to
prevent themselves from falling into a coma, they rocked their bodies
like things only half alive.

The black days and black nights slowly, tediously, achingly passed.
One day was like another--one night seemed to mark no progress of time.
Only the children, to whom parents gave the last bits of food, showed
some animation. They played listlessly with one another. For toys
they had crude carvings of soapstone--tiny soapstone lamps and pots
with which they made pitiful mimicry of cooking. The little girls
played with crude dolls just as do little girls in more southern
lands--but they were grotesque effigies, made of skin roughly sewn
together. The boys found brief zest in a game which was played by
sticking ivory points in a piece of bone, hanging from the roof of the
igloo, and which was perforated with holes. Finally, as the night wore
on, the children lost interest in their games, and with aching
stomachs, lay silent by the fires. Starvation steadily claimed its
toll. Death, slowly, surely, laid its grim and terrible hands upon
that pitiful fringe of earth's humanity on the desolate star-litten
roof of the world. One