CHAPTER V
LITTLE WHITE FOX MEETS BARRED SEAL
Little White Fox was running all over the ice that covered the ocean. It was spring, and the sun was shining its best all the time, but there was plenty of ice left. When there is two miles of ice out on the sand bar, and it is all six feet thick, you may easily guess it takes the sun a long time to loosen it up.
Well, Little White Fox was skipping about here and there to see what he could see, and was not paying much attention where he was going when, _Ah-ne-ca!_ down he went! Down! Down! and splash! right into the icy water! My! he was frightened! How was he ever to get out of that place?
Six feet of ice wall, straight as the sides of a house, was all about him. But what was this he saw on one side. It seemed to be a sort of little shelf. And, yes sir! as Little White Fox swam over to that side and began to climb up, his feet caught on a ledge, and before he knew it he was sitting in as neat a little room as you ever saw, and all made out of ice! walls, floor, and ceiling!
"Now I wonder who lives here," said Little White Fox to himself.
"Whoever it is, I suppose I shall have a great quarrel with him when he comes home."
But no one came, and very soon his coat was quite dry and he found himself very comfortable in this strange little ice palace. But how was he ever to get out and go back to his mother and friends?
Just when he was thinking about that, he saw the water get black all at once, and in another moment he was looking right into the face of a stranger who had popped up out of the water, as if by magic.
"Who are you?" asked Little White Fox, shaking all over with fright.
"I have many names." The stranger grinned so broadly Little White Fox quite lost his fear at once. "Some call me Barred Seal," the stranger continued, "and some call me Ring Seal. Others call me Rainbow Seal, and still others call me Northern Lights. You may call me what you like.
But say, there"s room for us both up there, isn"t there? I am tired!"
"But," said Little White Fox, when they were both comfortably seated, "you look very much like Little Brown Seal."
"Yes," said the other, "he is my cousin, so is Spotted Seal and Oogrook, the big seal, and Little Light Brown Seal, and goodness knows how many more! We are a large family. I am told that we have cousins living down in the Aleutian Islands who are very aristocratic indeed. They go by the name of Hair Seal. Why, their coats, I am told, are so valuable that Omnok, the hunter, would risk his life to get one of them! For my part, I prefer this simple coat which no man would steal, unless he needed it to make a pair of boots. But you must be hungry, and so am I. Just wait a minute."
Master Barred Seal disappeared in the water, reappearing from time to time with a fish in his mouth.
"Now," he said, when he had finished fishing, "we will have dinner."
Before Little White Fox was spread the most tempting array of fish he had ever seen.
"This is the finest home in the world," said Barred Seal proudly. "Your dinner comes right to your front door. Look!"
Little White Fox looked, and sure enough, there in the water were plenty more fish swimming round and round.
"But what if Omnok, the hunter, should find us here?" Little White Fox shivered suddenly.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "Now," he said, when he had finished fishing, "we will have dinner." _Page 38_]
"What if he should?" repeated the other. "There are four feet of solid ice between us and the top. He will not come down in the water to get us, so what could he do?"
"But very soon, Mother tells me," said Little White Fox, "the ice will all melt, or the wind will blow it out to sea."
"Oh, well, in that case," replied Barred Seal, smiling, "there is still the wild, free ocean to live in as always."
"Not for me!" said Little White Fox, turning white in the face and losing his appet.i.te all at once. "How can I get out of here?"
"You don"t want to go so soon," answered Barred Seal. "Stay with me awhile. I rather like you. And, as you see, we have plenty of good fish to eat."
"I thank you," said Little White Fox very politely, "but I"d very much rather go back home." And at that moment he had a frightful vision of all that ice going out, out to sea.
"Very well," said Barred Seal, "I"ll go in the water and stand on my tail; then you can climb out on my back. Only don"t dig in your toe nails."
In another moment Little White Fox was out in the bright sunshine, and you may be very sure he was glad to be there. "I guess the world was made about right," he said to himself. "And I am glad the hills, the tundra, and my own little home are just as they are, and I am glad I am Little White Fox."
CHAPTER VI
LITTLE WHITE FOX HELPS HIMSELF
Little White Fox was hungry again, and it was the hard, cold, winter time, when all of the little folks of the tundra have to hunt far and wide for food. He had asked Tdariuk, the reindeer, to invite him out to dinner. Tdariuk was very nice about it, but said he had only some lichens, which men call reindeer moss, to eat. When Little White Fox tasted them, he said they were not one bit good. The truth is they are very bitter, and taste good only to Reindeer and Caribou folks.
So Little White Fox went scratching away over the tundra and hillsides to see what he could find. He was half way up the side of Cape Prince of Wales Mountain when he came on the tracks of a stranger. "He must have come down from the higher mountains," said Little White Fox to himself.
"I wonder who he is. I don"t believe he is any bigger than I am, for his tracks are very close together."
He followed the tracks, very curious to know who this newcomer might be.
Pretty soon he came to a tunnel right into the snow. There were several tracks in and out of this, so he could not tell whether the stranger were at home or not. Little White Fox knew now that the other fellow was not so large as he, for the tunnel was almost too small for him to enter. But he gathered his coat close around him and crowded in. He rather hoped that he would not find the stranger at home, but that the table would be set for dinner.
And that was just the way it was! Little White Fox knocked at the door, and when no one answered, he walked right in. No,--the table wasn"t set, but in the storeroom there was plenty of food. Little White Fox did not make the least fuss but set the table himself.
Now you might think that Little White Fox would eat only fresh eggs and fish, but if you think so you are mistaken. He likes berries and roots, and that is just what he had to eat that day,--blueberries from the hillsides and nice juicy roots and bulbs from the tundra! My, they tasted good!
He had just finished eating when something disturbed him. He had been listening to the noise the wind made blowing across the entrance to the tunnel. Now the wind didn"t make any more noise,--not so he could hear it, anyway. That meant that some one had entered the tunnel.
Now Little White Fox was not wishing to see any one just then. "Guess I"d better find the other door to this house and go home," he said to himself. But there wasn"t any other door. Little White Fox wasn"t afraid, but then,--he just humped himself all up in a corner and wished he didn"t have to meet the stranger, that was all.
Well, sir! he had to laugh when he saw the stranger come in at the door. He was the oddest little fellow you ever saw! He looked just like Thunder, the big white rabbit, only his ears were short, his coat was yellow, and he was ever so much smaller. Little White Fox knew who he was right away, for he had heard his mother speak of the Lemming family.
And this was one of the Lemmings! There could be no doubt of it. And the Lemmings are great fighters, if they happen to be in the mood for it.
Why, they have been known to jump right into the ocean and try to swim across it.
"Now I wonder what I"d better do," thought Little White Fox to himself.
But just because he couldn"t think of anything at all to do, he did nothing. And that was the very wisest way to behave just then. All bunched up the way he was, he looked very large and strong. The longer Mr. Lemming looked at him, the more sure he became that Little White Fox was some relation of his. And we must be very kind to all our relatives, especially when they are bigger than we are!
Mr. Lemming moved over to one side of the room as if to say, "You may go out if you like."
Little White Fox moved half way to the door and then stopped, which meant, "I"d like you to move a little farther away."
Mr. Lemming went back to the other side.
Little White Fox went to the door, but even then he did not go out, not right away, he didn"t. He turned and looked at Mr. Lemming, which meant, "You won"t bite my heels, will you?"
Mr. Lemming didn"t make a move.
Little White Fox put his head out of the door. Then you should have seen him get out of that tunnel! I don"t believe Little White Fox ever went faster in the world. When he was out on the snow, he looked around and felt foolish, for Mr. Lemming was not coming after him at all.