chance hunting our dogs got to be fed!" More supplies were brought.
Still Ootah did not speak.

The white chief presently gazed hard at Ootah. Then his eyes
brightened with amused mirth. He saw the despairing, yearning gaze of
the youth toward the girl he had selected to favor.

"Ha, ha, ha!" he laughed good-naturedly. "I see. I've keel-hauled
your Romeo stunt, eh? Want the stuff?" He kicked the supplies
interrogatively.

Ootah sadly shook his head. He dully heard the vulgar gibes of the
white men and the mocking laughter of Maisanguaq.

One of the natives began beating a drum. Ootah giddily caught an
evanescent vision of women dancing with reeling traders. He heard
Olafaksoah as he entered Annadoah's tent laughing heartily.

The thought of Annadoah in the embrace of the big blond man, of her
face pressed to his in the white men's strange kiss of abomination,
aroused in Ootah a sense of violation, an instinctive repugnance akin
to the horror a native feels for the dead. All the ardent hopes of his
life for many moons had centered upon his bringing the results of a
successful hunt to Annadoah and asking her to share his igloo, to
become his wife. And now, in his hour of high victory, after everyone
had acclaimed him, he was crushed.

A fervid fever seemed to take fire in his forehead and flush his veins,
yet his heart was colder than ice, his hands and feet were cold. He
felt as though someone were strangling him; he felt giddy, suddenly