He lay down on his stomach and peeped into the hole to see what it was like. He could not see a thing!
Then he stuck his lance down. His lance touched something soft that wiggled! Menie stood up. He was so excited that he trembled. He knew he had found a seal-hole with a live seal in the snow house!
With all his strength he struck his lance down through the snow. The snow house fell in and Menie fell with it, but he kept hold of his lance. The end of the lance was buried in the snow, but it was moving.
Menie knew by this that he had stuck it into the seal!
He lay still and kept fast hold of his lance, and pressed down on it with all his might.
Nip and Tup were crazy with excitement. They jumped round and barked and tried to dig a hole in the snow with their forefeet.
At last the spear stopped wiggling. Then Menie carefully dug the snow away. There lay a little white seal! It was too young to swim away with its mother. That was why such a small boy as Menie had been able to kill it.
He dragged it out on the ice. He was so excited and so busy he did not notice how near he was to the open water.
IV.
All of a sudden there was a loud cracking noise, and Menie felt the ice moving under him! He looked back. There was a tiny strip of blue water between him and the sh.o.r.e!
The strip grew wider while he looked at it! Menie knew that he was adrift on an ice raft, and he was terribly frightened. Nip and Tup cuddled close to him and whined with fear.
Menie understood perfectly well that he might be carried far out to sea and never come back any more. He put his hands to his mouth and yelled with all his might!
Koko was still following the birds, and did not hear Menie"s cries.
Menie could see him running up the beach after the birds, and he could see his father working over his kyak near his home.
He even saw Monnie come out of the tunnel and go to watch her father at his work. They seemed very far away, and every moment the distance between them and the raft grew greater.
Menie screamed again and again. At the third scream he saw his father straighten up, shade his eyes with his hand, and look out to sea.
"Oh," Menie thought. "What if he shouldn"t see me!" He shouted louder than ever! He waved his arms! He even pinched the tails of Nip and Tup and made them bark. Then he saw his father wave his hand and dive into the tunnel.
In another instant he was out again and pulling on his skin coat. Then he took the kyak on his shoulders and ran with it to the beach. Monnie and Koolee came running after him.
They were doing the screaming now! Every one in the village heard the screams and came running down to the beach, too.
When Menie saw his father coming with the kyak, he wasn"t afraid any more, for he was sure his father would save him. He wasn"t even afraid about the cakes of ice that were floating in the water, though there is nothing more dangerous than to go out in a kyak among ice floes. One b.u.mp from a floating cake of ice is enough to upset any boat, and I don"t like to think of what might happen if a kyak should get between two big cakes of ice.
Kesshoo ran with his kyak as far as he could on the ice. Then he got in and fitted the bottom of his skin jacket over the kyak hole and carefully slid himself into the open water.
Once in the water, how his paddle flew!
It seemed to Menie as if his father would never reach him! He sat very still on the ice pan with the dead seal beside him, and Nip and Tup huddled up against him.
At last Kesshoo came near enough so he could make Menie hear everything he said. "Menie," he cried, "if you do exactly what I tell you to, I can save you.
"I will throw you my harpoon. You must drive it way down into the ice.
Then by the harpoon line I will tow your ice pan back toward sh.o.r.e.
When we get to the big ice I will find a place for you to land.
"You must be ready, and when I give the word jump from your ice raft on to the solid ice."
Then Kesshoo threw his harpoon, and Menie drove it into the ice with all his might. Slowly Kesshoo drew the line taut, turned his kyak round, and started for the sh.o.r.e. The journey out had been dangerous, but the journey back was much more so, for Kesshoo could not dodge the floating ice nearly so well. He had to pick his way carefully through the clearest water he could find. Very cautiously they moved toward sh.o.r.e.
V.
They were getting quite near the place where the ice had broken with Menie, when suddenly, right near them, they saw the head and great, round eyes of a seal! It was the seal mother.
She had come back to find her breathing hole and her baby.
The moment Kesshoo saw her he seized his dart, which lay in its place on top of his kyak, and threw it with all his might at the seal.
The seal dived down into the sea, but a bladder full of air was attached to the line on the dart, and this bladder floated on the water, so Kesshoo could tell by watching it just where the seal was.
Kesshoo knew he had struck the seal, and although he was already towing the ice raft, he was determined to bring home the big seal, too!
He called to Menie. "Sit still and wait until I come for you."
Then he quickly cut the harpoon line by which he was towing the ice raft, and set it adrift again. As soon as he was free he paddled away after the bladder, which was now bobbing along over the water at some little distance from the boat.
Menie sat perfectly still and watched his father. Kesshoo reached the bladder and began to pull on the line, but just at that moment the big seal turned round and swam right under the kyak!
In a second the kyak turned bottom side up in the water! Menie screamed. The people watching on the sh.o.r.e gave a great howl, and Koko"s father started up the beach after his own kyak.
He thought perhaps Kesshoo could not manage both the ice raft and the seal, and he meant to go to help him.
But in one second Kesshoo was right side up again. No water could get into the kyak because Kesshoo"s skin coat was drawn tight over the hole in the deck, and Kesshoo was in the coat!
Kesshoo often turned somersaults in the water in that way. Sometimes he even did it for fun! He said afterward that he could have turned the boat right side up again with just his nose, without using either his paddle or his arms, if only his nose had been a little bigger, and though he meant this for a joke, the twins believed that he really could do it.
The moment he was right side up again, Kesshoo gave chase once more to the bladder. The seal was very weak now, and Kesshoo knew that it would soon come to the surface and float and that then he could tow it in.
He had not long to wait. The bladder bobbed about for a while and then was still. Kesshoo drew up the line, and paddled back to the ice raft, towing the big seal after him.
"Catch this," he said to Menie. He threw him the end of the line. "Wind the line six times round the harpoon," he said, "and hold tight to the end of it."
Menie did as he was told. Then Kesshoo tied together the two ends of the harpoon line, which he had cut, and began to tow the ice raft back to share again.
Menie kept tight hold of the other line and towed the seal!
Kesshoo paddled slowly and carefully along, until at last there was only a little strip of water between the kyak and the solid ice.
But how in the world could Menie get across that strip of water to safety?
The kyak was between him and the solid ice, and Menie could not possibly get into the kyak. Neither could he swim. But Kesshoo knew a way.
He came up closer to the solid ice. Then he gave a great sweep with his paddle and lifted his kyak right up on to it. He sprang out, and, seizing the harpoon line, pulled Menie"s raft close up to the edge of the firm ice.