by one a stark body would be carried from an
igloo into the black, bitter cold silence without and buried under
blocks of snow. And above, intense and incandescent, the Pole
Star--that unerring time mark of God's inevitable and unerring
laws--burned like an all-seeing, sentient and pitiless eye of fire in
the heavens.

Annadoah lay upon her couch of furs. Her face was thin, and white as
the snows without. The flame in her stone lamp was about to flicker
into extinction.

Ootah, entering the igloo, sprang quickly to her side. Her breath came
very faintly. He seized her hands. He breathed on her face. He
opened her ahttee and rubbed her little breasts. He felt something
very strange, and wonderful, stirring within him. And with it a
ghastly fear that the thing he loved was dying.

Into the lamp he placed the last meagre bits of remaining blubber.
Then he again set to chafing the tender little hands. Cold and hunger
had wrought havoc upon Annadoah. Ootah's heart ached.

Finally her eyelids stirred. Her lips parted. A smile brightened her
face. Ootah leaned forward, breathlessly. Her lips framed an
inaudible word:

"Olafaksoah . . . Olafaksoah . . ." She opened her eyes. The smile
faded. "Thou . . . ?" she said.

"Yea, Annadoah, I have brought thee food," Ootah said. It was his last.

"I hunger," she breathed. "It is very cold . . . I was in the
south . . . where the sun is warm . . . it is very cold here."

Eagerly he pressed her hands. She drifted again into a stupor and for
a long while was silent. Ootah's warm panting breath finally brought
blood to her cheeks.

"Thou art so big . . . and strong . . ." she smiled again. "Thy arms
hurt me . . . as the embrace of _nannook_ (the bear). . . ." Her smile
deepened . . . her breath came more quickly. "Oh, oh, it is
pleasant . . . here . . . in . . . the south."

"Annadoah!" Ootah's wail of hurt recalled her.

Her eyes sought the igloo wonderingly.

"Thou?" she repeated, dully. "Yea, it is cold here. I am hungry . . .
Are there not _ahmingmah_ in the mountains, Ootah? Didst thou not tell
me there were _ahmingmah_ in the mountains . . . why do not the men of
the tribe seek the musk oxen in the mountains?"

With a sudden start Ootah remembered having told Annadoah of the herd
he had found in the inland valley--it was strange, he thought, he had
not remembered the herd before. And it was stranger still that now she
should remind h