My teacher said I must
pray the dear Lord Christ to save Tanana and my father from
drinking."
And Anvik prayed in the dark igloo.
The next day came, and Anvik went again to school, but Tanana and
the father went off to look at the ice-traps wherein Eskimos catch
any stray wolves or foxes.
When Anvik came back at night to the igloo, he met his father and
Tanana rejoicing over a bear cub that they had killed. They were
bringing it home with them, and were laughing, and shouting, and
singing, not so much from joy as from drinking together from the
bottle that Tanana had procured.
"We have a bear cub, a bear cub!" shouted Tanana in maudlin tones to
his brother. "See how strong the hot water we drink makes us! We
come home with a bear cub! Hot water, let us drink hot water!"
Now by "hot water" Tanana meant of course the liquor in his bottle,
and when Anvik saw the young bear and the condition his father and
brother were in, the lad immediately became very anxious, for the
Eskimos are usually very careful not to kill a young bear without
having first killed its mother. It is considered a very rash thing
to kill the cub first, and when men who are pressed by hunger do it,
they are obliged to exercise the strictest precaution lest they
should be attacked by the mother-bear, for she will surely follow on
the track of the men.
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