The White Czar (Hawkes)/Chapter 10
The winter following the epidemic which had taken so many of the children from them was a gloomy winter for Eskimo Town.
In Eiseeyou's igloo gloom rested even more darkly than elsewhere.
Not only had he lost three of his children, but the long night of blindness had settled upon his favorite Oumauk, and the shadow also rested upon him. This was a double tragedy for Oumauk, as his sister who had been his playmate ever since he could remember had also been taken. The whole circle of sad events seemed to Oumauk like a bad dream from which he must presently awake and see his sister by his side and the stonelamp shining brightly. The joy seemed to have all gone out of the Eskimo boy. He would sit for hours with his head in his hands thinking and wondering what it all meant. He was very silent and would answer only when questioned. Before this tragedy he had been a great chatterbox, so this made him seem doubly strange. The rest of the family tried to interest him. Eiseeyou sought to invent new games in which he could participate. But he could no longer throw the tiny harpoon at the swinging target, the favorite pastime of Eskimo boys, so he did nothing.
Sometimes Eiseeyou or some of the children would dress him up warm in his best clothes and lead him about outside, but he seemed to feel the cold more than ever before and soon pleaded to be taken inside.
Eiseeyou himself was greatly troubled and he planned day and night how to raise the large sum of money so that he might take little Oumauk to Quebec, where the great doctor might restore his eyesight.
He went upon several hard musk ox hunts but ill luck crowned each venture. Although he scoured the old hunting grounds for days, yet Omingmong was not to be found. Eiseeyou's skill and luck as a hunter seemed to have deserted him.
Then he doubled the number of his foxtraps, but several deep snows fell so that he had no luck trapping. At last hope had nearly left him, although he was still on the lookout for the chance to earn the great sum of money, which looked like a mountain of gold to the poor Eskimo.
So it was that the weary winter wore away and spring again came. When Eiseeyou proposed to Oumauk that he again go with him to set up the net for the auks, the boy said that the long night was still with them, and that the auk would not come back until the sun shone again. So he would not go. When he finally ventured from the igloo and felt the warm air of springtime, he was much puzzled. Spring had really come, but the long night was still there.
It was just after the return of the auk and other spring birds which meant so much to the Eskimo that Eskimo Town was visited by two white men. They came upon small ponies and were a great curiosity to the simple Snow People.
They were the agents of several large cities to the south, both in Canada and the States. They were in search of wild animals and birds for the zoos of these cities and they needed the services of some clever Eskimo hunter to help them in capturing the birds and animals they wanted. At the settlement to the south Eiseeyou had been recommended to them by the missionaries and government teachers. Would he go with them on a cruise to the north and help them in securing the animals?
They offered him as wages a sum of money which would be half enough to take Oumauk to see the great doctor. They would be gone only two months.
Eiseeyou consulted with his good kooner and they agreed that it was a great chance. The good God had sent the white men in order that they might have the money. Little Oumauk should not always stay in the long dark night.
So Eiseeyou arranged that some of the other men would take charge of his family during the northern migration to Eskimo Village, in order that he might go with the white men.
He said goodbye to his family and to little Oumauk, whom he told that he would soon bring the sun back to him. Then he set off with the strangers with a lighter heart than he had known for months.
Eiseeyou was much surprised on arriving at the small seaport which the strangers made their head quarters to find that they had a large steam launch fifty or sixty feet in length, named The Spray all fitted up in a manner that looked luxuriant to the simple Eskimo. They at once started northward and finally stopped among the islands adjacent to the site of Eskimo Village, where Eiseeyou was much at home. They secured during the first week eider duck, Brant geese, gulls of several species, and auks, all of which Eiseeyou helped them to net. Then they turned their attention to seals. Soon they had a fine assortment of pups and yearlings, and several pairs of two year olds.
They also secured two walrus calves and two litters of foxes, the burrows of which Eiseeyou had located.
It was while prospecting about on the islands one day that they came across The White Czar, who had preceded the inhabitants of Eskimo Town to their summer quarters at Eskimo Village.
At the sight of the great white bear tears filled the eyes of Eiseeyou for it brought to his remembrance the sad picture of poor little Oumauk groping helplessly about in the igloo and declaring that the light in the stone lamp had gone out.
The white men saw the great white bear almost as soon as Eiseeyou did, and were much excited. For in the orders that they had brought north with them was a special recommendation that they capture a polar bear, alive, for the zoo at Quebec.
They at once communicated their hopes of securing a polar bear to Eiseeyou, and asked his assistance.
Then it was that the famous Eskimo hunter sat down upon a rock with the two white men and told them the strange story of Whitie and little Oumauk. He told it with tears streaming down his cheeks and with such earnestness and feeling that the white men were amazed.
"You see," he concluded, "little Oumauk loves the bear more than anything else in the world; and if he knew I had helped to capture him, it would kill him. His heart is almost broken now. I cannot make him sad any more, but I must have the money so he can see the great doctor. I must."
"Yes, that is so," agreed the white men. "You must."
"It is a sort of providence," they argued, "that you know about this white bear, which you say is partly tame. He would be easier to capture than a wild bear. And you must have the money. Think of what it means to little Oumauk.
"The sun would come back again for him. The moon and the stars would shine for him once more. It must be very hard for him, a little boy alone in the dark."
They were white men, and they knew how to argue and to make bad things look good. Eiseeyou was only a simple Eskimo and he needed the money desperately. So he finally agreed. He would help; he would help them capture the White Czar. But little Oumauk must never know for it would break his heart. It already ached enough.
So the ship's carpenter set to work the following day making a cage for the White Czar. The frame was made of three by six timbers and the rest of the cage was two inch plank. Eiseeyou shook his head and said it was rather frail to hold him, for he knew the great bear's strength better than the white men. So they bolted it at all the corners and bound it with iron straps, which would stiffen it without making it too heavy. Finally it was all ready, and with a heavy heart Eiseeyou set forth with four white men in a motor boat to betray the White Czar into the clutch of civilization—that great strong hand which reaches forth to the ends of the earth and grasps so many beautiful and wonderful things, only to kill both their beauty and life at last.
They found the white bear upon a small island eating a seal pup. But when one of their number landed he at once took to the water in an attempt to swim to another island nearer the mainland. That was just what the men wanted.
Now the White Czar is the very best swimmer of all quadrupeds. He can swim for hours in the icy water. Miles in the water are nothing to him, if he has the time in which to do them.
But the poor white monster had never heard of a motor boat. All of the modern engines for annihilating distance were unknown to him. He was amazed and rather frightened at the speed with which this strange thing came after him. But he was not really afraid, for he was the White Czar. He was the Czar of the frozen north; and why should he be afraid? But he could not understand this strange chugging thing. It had neither head nor legs, yet it swam like a great fish.
Before he had covered half the distance to the other island, it was almost upon him. Then he turned with an angry snarl to fight. He raised his head up out of the water and showed his shining set of teeth and snarled at the white hunters in a way that made their blood run cold. If their plans should miscarry—if he got at them, it would be a fight to the finish.
But the White Czar had also never heard of a lasso, and when he reared his head above the water, a rawhide rope fell fairly over his head. In another second it had tightened upon his neck with a strangling grip.
He clutched at it with his great paws and tried to loosen it, but could not. So he swam straight at his assailants, his long tongue lolling out, and his mighty jaw open ready for the fatal bite.
But the strange fish was not slower than the white bear, for the man at the helm saw their danger and pulled the throttle wide open. His action was not a second too quick, for the great bear was almost upon the boat before it had gained headway.
Yet it just eluded him and in a very few seconds had put the length of the rawhide rope between him and his tormentors.
Then began a series of tiring-out manœuvers that made Eiseeyou's heart ache. More than once he brushed away the tears and set his thoughts firmly upon little Oumauk who was living in the long night. They must all make sacrifices for him. It was just and right that the White Czar should be sacrificed.
They did not give the great bear a moment in which to rest. For hours they dragged him about mercilessly at the end of the rawhide. If he stopped swimming after them, they came close and prodded him with a harpoon and aroused his anger. Soon they had two rawhide ropes about his great neck, and this spelled his doom.
He lashed the water into foam. He roared and struck with his paws. He bit at and fought the ropes about his neck which were slowly choking him, with his great strength, but it was a foe he could not get at. It always ran away, it taunted and mocked him.
It prodded and choked him and gradually it wore him down to a helpless mass of quivering muscles, with the heart and the fight all gone out of him.
It seemed to poor Eiseeyou during this terrible ordeal that the bear kept his eyes constantly fixed on him. It seemed to him that the great brute was accusing him, was imploring him, was appealing to him to save him. But he had given his word to help, and he could do nothing.
Finally the motor boat towed the nearly lifeless Czar along side The Spray, and the men quickly lifted him to the deck. This was after several ropes had been passed about his great, almost lifeless bulk. Then he was lifted by a fearful and wondering crew into the cage that had been prepared for him. There for hours he lay in the bottom of his cage with his great head between his paws, moaning and groaning, his spirit broken and seemingly near to death.
Meanwhile Eiseeyou walked the deck of the great boat, his simple soul wracked in devilish torment. Occasionally he would come and stand by the cage and look at The White Czar. Then he would remember what a lovable little chap he had been as a cub, and how little Oumauk had loved him. Then he would go away to pace the deck again.
Thus the first night of the White Czar's captivity wore away; but whether it was longer for the great beast or for the agonized man, who shall say?