Part 18 (2/2)

Kaviak flatly declined to fall in with as much as he understood of this arrangement.

”What is it, anyway?” the Boy pursued.

”His amulet, I suppose.” As Father Wills proceeded to enforce his order, and pulled the leather string over the child's head, Kaviak rent the air with shrieks and coughs. He seemed to say as well as he could, ”I can do without my parki and my mucklucks, but I'll take my death without my amulet.”

Mac insinuated himself brusquely between the victim and his persecutors. He took the dirty object away from the priest with scant ceremony, in spite of the whisper, ”Infection!” and gave it back to the wrathful owner.

”You talk his language, don't you?” Mac demanded of Nicholas.

The Pymeut pilot nodded.

”Tell him, if he'll lend the thing to me to wash, he shall have it back.”

Nicholas explained.

Kaviak, with streaming eyes and quivering lips, reluctantly handed it over, and watched Mac anxiously till overwhelmed by a yet greater misfortune in the shape of a bath for himself.

”How shall I clean this thing thoroughly?” Mac condescended to ask Father Wills. The priest shrugged.

”He'll have forgotten it to-morrow.”

”He shall have it to-morrow,” said Mac.

With his back to Kaviak, the Boy, O'Flynn, and Potts crowding round him, Mac ripped open the little bird-skin pouch, and took out three objects--an ivory mannikin, a crow's feather, and a thing that Father Wills said was a seal-blood plug.

”What's it for?” ”Same as the rest. It's an amulet; only as it's used to stop the flow of blood from the wound of a captive seal, it is supposed to be the best of all charms for anyone who spits blood.”

”I'll clean 'em all after the Blow-Out,” said Mac, and he went out, buried the charms in the snow, and stuck up a spruce twig to mark the spot.

Meanwhile, to poor Kaviak it was being plainly demonstrated what an awful fate descended on a person so unlucky as to part with his amulet.

He stood straight up in the bucket like a champagne-bottle in a cooler, and he could not have resented his predicament more if he had been set in crushed ice instead of warm water. Under the remorseless hands of Nicholas he began to splutter and choke, to fizz, and finally explode with astonishment and wrath. It was quite clear Nicholas was trying to drown him. He took the treatment so to heart, that he kept on howling dismally for some time after he was taken out, and dried, and linimented and dosed by Mac, whose treachery about the amulet he seemed to forgive, since ”Farva” had had the air of rescuing him from the horrors he had endured in that water-bucket, where, for all Kaviak knew, he might have stayed till he succ.u.mbed to death. The Boy contributed a s.h.i.+rt of his own, and helped Mac to put it on the incredibly thin little figure. The s.h.i.+rt came down to Kaviak's heels, and had to have the sleeves rolled up every two minutes. But by the time the reindeer-steak was nearly done Kaviak was done, too, and O'Flynn had said, ”That Sp.i.s.simen does ye credit, Mac.”

Said Sp.i.s.simen was now staring hungrily out of the Colonel's bunk, holding towards Mac an appealing hand, with half a yard of s.h.i.+rt-sleeve falling over it.

Mac pretended not to see, and drew up to the table the one remaining available thing to sit on, his back to his patient.

When the dogs had been fed, and the other Indians had come in, and squatted on the buffalo-skin with Nicholas, the first course was sent round in tin cups, a nondescript, but warming, ”camp soup.”

”Sorry we've got so few dishes, gentlemen,” the Colonel had said.

”We'll have to ask some of you to wait till others have finished.”

”Farva,” remarked Kaviak, leaning out of the bunk and sniffing the savoury steam.

”He takes you for a priest,” said Potts, with the cheerful intention of stirring Mac's bile. But not even so d.a.m.ning a suspicion as that could cool the collector's kindness for his new Sp.i.s.simen.

”You come here,” he said. Kaviak didn't understand. The Boy got up, limped over to the bunk, lifted the child out, and brought him to Mac's side.

”Since there ain't enough cups,” said Mac, in self-justification, and he put his own, half empty, to Kaviak's lips. The Sp.i.s.simen imbibed greedily, audibly, and beamed. Mac, with unimpaired gravity, took no notice of the huge satisfaction this particular remedy was giving his patient, except to say solemnly, ”Don't bubble in it.”

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