Unlike the average
Eskimo dwellings they were neatly built of small timber brought down
from the mountains, and were arranged in orderly fashion like the
cottages of a village, strung out prettily on a single street. A sea of
flowers lay in front of them, and at the end of the row, built on a
little knoll that looked down into one of the watered hollows of the
tundra, was Sokwenna's cabin. Because Sokwenna was the "old man" of the
community and therefore the wisest--and because with him lived his
foster-daughters, Keok and Nawadlook, the loveliest of Alan's tribal
colony--Sokwenna's cabin was next to Alan's in size. And Alan, looking
at it now and then as he ate his breakfast, saw a thin spiral of smoke
rising from the chimney, but no other sign of life.
The sun was already up almost to its highest point, a little more than
half-way between the horizon and the zenith, performing the apparent
miracle of rising in the north and traveling east instead of west. Alan
knew the men-folk of the village had departed hours ago for the distant
herds. Always, when the reindeer drifted into the higher and cooler
feeding-grounds of the foothills, there was this apparent abandonment,
and after last night's celebration the women and children were not yet
awake to the activities of the long day, where the rising and setting of
the sun meant so little.
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