As soon as they had greeted Kotuko , these two , who had been forced to sleep and eat and hunt together for the past few weeks , flew at each other 's throat , and there was a beautiful battle in the snow-house . `` Empty dogs do not fight , '' Kotuko said . `` They have found the seal . Let us sleep . We shall find food . '' When they waked there was open water on the north beach of the island , and all the loosened ice had been driven landward . The first sound of the surf is one of the most delightful that the Inuit can hear , for it means that spring is on the road . Kotuko and the girl took hold of hands and smiled , for the clear , full roar of the surge among the ice reminded them of salmon and reindeer time and the smell of blossoming ground-willows . Even as they looked , the sea began to skim over between the floating cakes of ice , so intense was the cold ; but on the horizon there was a vast red glare , and that was the light of the sunken sun . It was more like hearing him yawn in his sleep than seeing him rise , and the glare lasted for only a few minutes , but it marked the turn of the year . Nothing , they felt , could alter that . Kotuko found the dogs fighting over a fresh-killed seal who was following the fish that a gale always disturbs . He was the first of some twenty or thirty seal that landed on the island in the course of the day , and till the sea froze hard there were hundreds of keen black heads rejoicing in the shallow free water and floating about with the floating ice . It was good to eat seal-liver again ; to fill the lamps recklessly with blubber , and watch the flame blaze three feet in the air ; but as soon as the new sea-ice bore , Kotuko and the girl loaded the hand-sleigh , and made the two dogs pull as they had never pulled in their lives , for they feared what might have happened in their village . The weather was as pitiless as usual ; but it is easier to draw a sleigh loaded with good food than to hunt starving . They left five-and-twenty seal carcasses buried in the ice of the beach , all ready for use , and hurried back to their people . The dogs showed them the way as soon as Kotuko told them what was expected , and though there was no sign of a landmark , in two days they were giving tongue outside Kadlu 's house . Only three dogs answered them ; the others had been eaten , and the houses were all dark . But when Kotuko shouted , `` Ojo ! '' -LRB- boiled meat -RRB- , weak voices replied , and when he called the muster of the village name by name , very distinctly , there were no gaps in it .
An hour later the lamps blazed in XXXXX 's house ; snow-water was heating ; the pots were beginning to simmer , and the snow was dripping from the roof , as Amoraq made ready a meal for all the village , and the boy-baby in the hood chewed at a strip of rich nutty blubber , and the hunters slowly and methodically filled themselves to the very brim with seal-meat .
Kadlu days hand-sleigh landward left minutes reindeer sea-ice sleigh snow-house