he had invoked harm to her. Then in the winds Ootah heard the beat of
drums. In the clouds he saw the white men dancing with the Eskimo
maidens. Day after day they danced--day after day Annadoah wept.
Olafaksoah had become wearied. Disappointed in the failure to secure
greater supplies, he vented his impatience upon Annadoah. Cruelly he
bruised her little hands, he mocked and jeered her when she pleaded
with him. In fits of anger he often struck her. Finally, one day, in
the cloud phantasmagoria, Ootah saw Olafaksoah reeling from the strange
red-gold water the white men drank. He entered Annadoah's tent. She
crouched, terrified, in a corner. With him were three of his rough
blond companions. They staggered--and in the winds they sang.
Olafaksoah pointed consentingly to Annadoah. One of the men attempted
to embrace her. Then she rose defiantly and did what few Eskimo women
ever dared. She smote the man's leering face and, sobbing, sank on her
knees before Olafaksoah. He roared out things the Eskimos do not
understand. "_Goddlmighty_!" and more awful words. His fist
descended. In the winds Ootah heard Annadoah scream and call his name.

That day he descended from the mountains.


Much that Ootah conjured in his mind, or imagined he saw in the clouds,
really happened. Whether he actually sensed these things by some
wonderful power of clairvoyance, which the natives themselves
believe--or whether he just accurately guessed what occurred, I do not
know. But of this I can tell:

By that strange contradictoriness of the feminine--much the same all
the world over--by that inherent, inborn desire of subjugation to the
brutal and domineering in the male, Annadoah had given herself