who
received them with an air of refinement and urbanity so far removed from
Eskimo manners and character, that Captain Vane felt convinced he must
be descended from some other branch of the human family. Makitok felt
and expressed a degree of interest in the objects of the expedition
which had not been observed in any Eskimo, except Chingatok, and he was
intelligent and quick of perception far before most of those who
surrounded him.

"And what have you to say about yourself?" asked the captain that
evening, after a long animated conversation on the country and its
productions.

"I have little to say," replied the old man, sadly. "There is no
mystery about my family except its beginning in the long past."

"But is not _all_ mystery in the long past?" asked the Captain.

"True, my son, but there is a difference in _my_ mystery. Other Eskimos
can trace back from son to father till they get confused and lost, as if
surrounded by the winter-fogs. But when I trace back--far back--I come
to one man--my _first father_, who had no father, it is said, and who
came no one knows from where. My mind is not confused or lost; it is
stopped!"

"Might not the mystery-bundle that you call _buk_ explain matters?"
asked Alf.

When this was translated, the old man for the first time looked
troubled.

"I dare not open it," he said in an undertone, as if speaking to
himself. "From father to son we have held it sacred. It must grow--
ever grow--never diminish!"

"It's a pity he looks at it in that light," remarked Leo to Benjy, as
they lay down to sleep that night. "I have no doubt that the man whom
he styles first father wrapped up the thing, whatever it is, to keep it
safe, not to make a mystery of it, and that his successors, having begun
with a mistaken view, have now converted the re-wrapping of the bundle
by each successive heir into a sacred obligation. However, we may
perhaps succeed in overcoming the old fellow's prejudices. Good-night,
Benjy."

A snore from Benjy showed that Leo's words had been thrown away, so,
with a light laugh, he turned over, and soon joined his comrade in the
land of dreams.

For two weeks the party remained on _Great Isle_, hunting, shooting,
fishing, collecting, and investigating; also, we may add, astonishing
the natives.

During that period many adventures of a more or less exciting nature
befell them, which, however, we must pass over in silence. At the end
of that time, the