The Magnetic North Part 38

One morning the Colonel announced that now the days had grown so short, and the Trio were so late coming to breakfast, and n.o.body did any work to speak of, it would be a good plan to have only two meals a day.

The motion was excessively unpopular, but it was carried by a plain, and somewhat alarming, exposition of the state of supplies.

"We oughtn't to need as much food when we lazy round the fire all day,"

said the Colonel. But Potts retorted that they'd need a lot more if they went on adoptin' the aborigines.

They knocked off supper, and all but the aborigine knew what it meant sometimes to go hungry to bed.

Towards the end of dinner one day late in December, when everybody else had finished except for coffee and pipe, the aborigine held up his empty plate.

"Haven't you had enough?" asked the Colonel mildly, surprised at Kaviak's bottomless capacity.

"Maw." Still the plate was extended.

"There isn't a drop of syrup left," said Potts, who had drained the can, and even wiped it out carefully with halves of hot biscuit.

"He don't really want it."

"Mustn't open a fresh can till to-morrow."

"No, sir_ee_. We've only got--"

"Besides, he'll bust."

Kaviak meanwhile, during this paltry discussion, had stood up on the high stool "Farva" had made for him, and personally inspected the big mush-pot. Then he turned to Mac, and, pointing a finger like a straw (nothing could fatten those infinitesimal hands), he said gravely and fluently:

"Maw in de plenty-bowl."

"Yes, maw mush, but no maw syrup."

The round eyes travelled to the store corner.

"We'll have to open a fresh can some time--what's the odds?"

Mac got up, and not only Kaviak watched him--for syrup was a luxury not expected every day--every neck had craned, every pair of eyes had followed anxiously to that row of rapidly diminis.h.i.+ng tins, all that was left of the things they all liked best, and they still this side of Christmas!

"What you rubber-neckin' about?" Mac snapped at the Boy as he came back with the fresh supply. This unprovoked attack was ample evidence that Mac was uneasy under the eyes of the camp, angry at his own weakness, and therefore the readier to dare anybody to find fault with him.

"How can I help watchin' you?" said the Boy. Mac lifted his eyes fiercely. "I'm fascinated by your winnin' ways; we're all like that."

Kaviak had meanwhile made a prosperous voyage to the plenty-bowl, and returned to Mac's side--an absurd little figure in a strange priest-like ca.s.sock b.u.t.toned from top to bottom (a waistcoat of Mac's), and a jacket of the Boy's, which was usually falling off (and trailed on the ground when it wasn't), and whose sleeves were rolled up in inconvenient m.u.f.fs. Still, with a gravity that did not seem impaired by these details, he stood clutching his plate anxiously with both hands, while down upon the corn-mush descended a slender golden thread, manipulated with a fine skill to make the most of its sweetness. It curled and spiralled, and described the kind of involved and long-looped flourishes which the grave and reverend of a hundred years ago wrote jauntily underneath the most sober names.

Lovingly the dark eyes watched the engrossing process. Even when the attenuated thread was broken, and the golden rain descended in slow, infrequent drops, Kaviak stood waiting, always for just one drop more.

"That's enough, greedy."

"Now go away and gobble."

But Kaviak daintily skimmed off the syrupy top, and left his mush almost as high a hill as before.

It wasn't long after the dinner, things had been washed up, and the Colonel settled down to the magazines--he was reading the advertis.e.m.e.nts now--that Potts drew out his watch.

"Golly! do you fellers know what o'clock it is?" He held the open timepiece up to Mac. "Hardly middle o' the afternoon. All these hours before bedtime, and nothin' to eat till to-morrow!"

"Why, you've just finished--"

"But look at the _time!_"

The Colonel said nothing. Maybe he had been a little previous with dinner today; it was such a relief to get it out of the way. Oppressive as the silence was, the sound of Potts's voice was worse, and as he kept on about how many hours it would be till breakfast, the Colonel said to the Boy:

"'Johnny, get your gun,' and we'll go out."

In these December days, before the watery sun had set, the great, rich-coloured moon arose, having now in her resplendent fulness quite the air of snuffing out the sun. The pale and heavy-eyed day was put to shame by this brilliant night-lamp, that could cast such heavy shadows, and by which men might read.

The instant the Big Cabin door was opened Kaviak darted out between the Colonel's legs, threw up his head like a Siwash dog, sniffed at the frosty air and the big orange moon, flung up his heels, and tore down to the forbidden, the fascinating fish-hole. If he hadn't got snared in his trailing coat he would have won that race. When the two hunters had captured Kaviak, and shut him indoors, they acted on his implied suggestion that the fish-trap ought to be examined. They chopped away the fresh-formed ice. Empty, as usual.

It had been very nice, and neighbourly, of Nicholas, as long ago as the 1st of December, to bring the big, new, cornucopia-shaped trap down on his sled on the way to the Ikogimeut festival. It had taken a long time to cut through the thick ice, to drive in the poles, and fasten the slight fencing, in such relation to the mouth of the sunken trap, that all well-conducted fish ought easily to find their way thither. As a matter of fact, they didn't. Potts said it was because the Boy was always hauling out the trap "to see"; but what good would it be to have it full of fish and not know?

They had been out about an hour when the Colonel brought down a ptarmigan, and said he was ready to go home. The Boy hesitated.

"Going to give in, and cook that bird for supper?"

It was a tempting proposition, but the Colonel said, rather sharply: "No, sir. Got to keep him for a Christmas turkey."

"Well, I'll just see if I can make it a brace."

The Colonel went home, hung his trophy outside to freeze, and found the Trio had decamped to the Little Cabin. He glanced up anxiously to see if the demijohn was on the shelf. Yes, and Kaviak sound asleep in the bottom bunk. The Colonel would climb up and have forty winks in the top one before the Boy got in for their game of chess. He didn't know how long he had slept when a faint scratching p.r.i.c.ked through the veil of slumber, and he said to himself, "Kaviak's on a raid again," but he was too sodden with sleep to investigate. Just before he dropped off again, however, opening a heavy eye, he saw Potts go by the bunk, stop at the door and listen. Then he pa.s.sed the bunk again, and the faint noise recommenced. The Colonel dropped back into the gulf of sleep, never even woke for his chess, and in the morning the incident had pa.s.sed out of his mind.

Just before dinner the next day the Boy called out:

"See here! who's spilt the syrup?"

"Spilt it?"

"Syrup?"

"No; it don't seem to be spilt, either." He patted the ground with his hand.

"You don't mean that new can--"

"Not a drop in it." He turned it upside down.

Every eye went to Kaviak. He was sitting on his cricket by the fire waiting for dinner. He returned the accusing looks of the company with self-possession.

"Come here." He got up and trotted over to "Farva."

"Have you been to the syrup?"

Kaviak shook his head.