eaded tusk went
right through the side of the boat and wounded the hunter. But there
are no friends like Eskimo friends for a man in such a plight. They
killed the walrus--they dined off the meat--and the tusks are kept to
this day to show for it. A skin canoe against a walrus--that is a
battle indeed. The younger men know what it means: and the old man is
comforted by the remembrance of what he used to be.

They are patient people, the Eskimo, and they need all the patience
they have. An Inspector sent a boat-load of Eskimo to a fiord to get
some grass for his goats.

They were gone a long time, and he wondered what had become of them.

When at last they returned, he asked them why they remained away so
long. They told him that when they got to the place where he told them
to go, they found the grass was too short. So they had to sit down and
wait until it grew. Their time was of no value. And they had their
orders to obey!

The world owes it to these brave people not to take from them their
birthright to their few possessions in the far places where they
dwell.

VII

LITTLE PRINCE POMIUK

There was an Eskimo boy named Pomiuk who lived in the far north of
Labrador, at Nachoak Bay. Pomiuk had the regular sea-and-land training
of the Eskimo boy. In summer his family lived in a skin tent, in
winter they occupied an ice igloo. It is a fine art making one of
those rounded domes--the curving blocks must be shaped and fitted
exactly, so as to come out even at the top.

Blubber in a stone dish supplied light and heat. If the air got too
thick, father could thrust the handle of his dog-whip through the
roof. Nobody bothered about bathing on Saturday night, and nobody
minded the smell of rotten whale-meat for the dogs. In an atmosphere
that would stifle a white man, Pomiuk and his brothers and sisters
throve and laughed and had the time of their lives. Pomiuk had his own
whip of braided walrus hide, and even when he was little the dogs
respected him and ran forward when he shouted "oo-isht!" turned to
the right at "ouk!" and stopped and sat down panting when he shouted
"ah!"

When Pomiuk was ten years old a ship came on a strange errand.
Pomiuk's family and their friends were fishing for cod. But when the
strange ship dropped anchor, they flocked to it shouting in their own
tongue "Stranger! stranger!" When they learned why it came they were
amazed.

An Eskimo interpreter who came with the white men from t