On the tundra back of the village, the hip-deep snow was cleared away from a space ten feet square, and a driftwood fire built on the frozen earth. As the gray ice-veins melted away, the Eskimos dug up the thawed ground, until at last the pit was deep enough to take Konrad’s clay. Then one bitter afternoon the villagers gathered for the burial rites.
Angus would never forget this picture. On one side of the rude grave the natives stood in a dark, silent group. Their oppressor was gone from them, but they seemed to feel neither joy nor sorrow, only a dull wonderment. After all, it meant little to them. Some other white man would come to take their furs and sell them kow-kow. A man lived so long, then died. They could do nothing about it. It was not in their hands. They stood watching with
