The air was hazy , and the Thing seemed to be forty feet long and ten feet high , with twenty feet of tail and a shape that quivered all along the outlines . The girl saw it too , but instead of crying aloud with terror , said quietly , `` That is Quiquern . What comes after ? '' `` He will speak to me , '' said Kotuko ; but the snow-knife trembled in his hand as he spoke , because however much a man may believe that he is a friend of strange and ugly spirits , he seldom likes to be taken quite at his word . Quiquern , too , is the phantom of a gigantic toothless dog without any hair , who is supposed to live in the far North , and to wander about the country just before things are going to happen . They may be pleasant or unpleasant things , but not even the sorcerers care to speak about Quiquern . He makes the dogs go mad . Like the Spirit-Bear , he has several extra pairs of legs , -- six or eight , -- and this Thing jumping up and down in the haze had more legs than any real dog needed . Kotuko and the girl huddled into their hut quickly . Of course if Quiquern had wanted them , he could have torn it to pieces above their heads , but the sense of a foot-thick snow-wall between themselves and the wicked dark was great comfort . The gale broke with a shriek of wind like the shriek of a train , and for three days and three nights it held , never varying one point , and never lulling even for a minute . They fed the stone lamp between their knees , and nibbled at the half-warm seal-meat , and watched the black soot gather on the roof for seventy-two long hours . The girl counted up the food in the sleigh ; there was not more than two days ' supply , and Kotuko looked over the iron heads and the deer-sinew fastenings of his harpoon and his seal-lance and his bird-dart . There was nothing else to do . `` We shall go to Sedna soon -- very soon , '' the girl whispered . `` In three days we shall lie down and go . Will your tornaq do nothing ? Sing her an angekok 's song to make her come here . '' He began to sing in the high-pitched howl of the magic songs , and the gale went down slowly . In the middle of his song the girl started , laid her mittened hand and then her head to the ice floor of the hut .
XXXXX followed her example , and the two kneeled , staring into each other 's eyes , and listening with every nerve .
Kotuko Quiquern Spirit-Bear bird-dart harpoon hours minute nights seal-lance tornaq