a, to be truthful with thee, Maisanguaq, there is dispute among the
spirits. I cannot determine what they say." He bent his head as if
listening. Then he asked:

"Doth Ootah not go that Annadoah may have food?"

Maisanguaq nodded assent.

"And the tribe?"

Maisanguaq again nodded.

As though he suddenly heard some terrifying converse among his
familiars the necromancer's face blanched. He struggled to his feet.

"Take thy food," he flung the blubber to Maisanguaq. "I dare not take
thy gift. I am afraid."

Maisanguaq sprang at the old man. "Revoke not thy curse," he breathed,
his fingers sinking into the _angakoq's_ throat. "Will the hill
spirits strike?"

"Yea," the old man gasped, "but they say----"

Maisanguaq's fingers loosened. "What?" he demanded.

"That there is . . . some other power . . . which is very
strange--which----"

"Yea, yea----"

"Protecteth Ootah . . . It concerneth . . . Annadoah. I do not wish
thy gift. I fear the spirits. The magic of Ootah--what it is . . . I
cannot tell thee . . . But the spirits say . . . it . . .
concerneth . . . Annadoah. And against it none of the _tornarssuit_
can prevail." Maisanguaq threw the old man fiercely to the floor and,
disgusted, left the igloo.

Outside, the entire tribe, with the exception of those dying of hunger,
had gathered in groups. Ootah lifted his whip. His team of eight lean
dogs howled.

"_Tugto_! _Tugto_!" he called. The dogs leaped into the air--his sled
shot forward. Ootah strode forward.

In his desperate adventure Ootah was joined by one of the younger
members of the tribe, Koolotah by name, a lad barely eighteen years of
age. All the others had hung back. Koolotah's mother was dying; a
desperate desire to save her stirred in his heart as he lifted his whip
in the signal to start. The tribe cheered.

"_Huk_! _Huk_!" he shouted, and his lean dogs followed Ootah's team.

"_Au-oo-au-oo_!" called the natives.

"_Auoo-auoo_!" the voices of Ootah and Koolotah returned.

Over the snow-covered stretch of level shoreland the moon poured a
flood of silver incandescence. In this magical light the forms of
Ootah and his companion were magnified into the likeness of those of
the giants that the old men said once lived in the highlands. Their
dogs were distended into creatures of the size of musk oxen. Their
whips exploded as they dashed past the straggling line of snow and
stone houses; the snow crisply c