`` Name him for me , '' said Kotuko , with a grin . `` I shall need him one day . '' Kadlu grinned back till his eyes were almost buried in the fat of his flat cheeks , and nodded to Amoraq , while the puppy 's fierce mother whined to see her baby wriggling far out of reach in the little sealskin pouch hung above the warmth of the blubber-lamp . Kotuko went on with his carving , and Kadlu threw a rolled bundle of leather dog-harnesses into a tiny little room that opened from one side of the house , slipped off his heavy deerskin hunting-suit , put it into a whalebone-net that hung above another lamp , and dropped down on the sleeping-bench to whittle at a piece of frozen seal-meat till Amoraq , his wife , should bring the regular dinner of boiled meat and blood-soup . He had been out since early dawn at the seal-holes , eight miles away , and had come home with three big seal . Half-way down the long , low snow passage or tunnel that led to the inner door of the house you could hear snappings and yelpings , as the dogs of his sleigh-team , released from the day 's work , scuffled for warm places . When the yelpings grew too loud Kotuko lazily rolled off the sleeping-bench , and picked up a whip with an eighteen-inch handle of springy whalebone , and twenty-five feet of heavy , plaited thong . He dived into the passage , where it sounded as though all the dogs were eating him alive ; but that was no more than their regular grace before meals . When he crawled out at the far end , half a dozen furry heads followed him with their eyes as he went to a sort of gallows of whale-jawbones , from which the dog 's meat was hung ; split off the frozen stuff in big lumps with a broad-headed spear ; and stood , his whip in one hand and the meat in the other . Each beast was called by name , the weakest first , and woe betide any dog that moved out of his turn ; for the tapering lash would shoot out like thonged lightning , and flick away an inch or so of hair and hide . Each beast growled , snapped , choked once over his portion , and hurried back to the protection of the passage , while the boy stood upon the snow under the blazing Northern Lights and dealt out justice . The last to be served was the big black leader of the team , who kept order when the dogs were harnessed ; and to him Kotuko gave a double allowance of meat as well as an extra crack of the whip . `` Ah ! '' said Kotuko , coiling up the lash , `` I have a little one over the lamp that will make a great many howlings . SARPOK ! Get in ! '' He crawled back over the huddled dogs , dusted the dry snow from his furs with the whalebone beater that Amoraq kept by the door , tapped the skin-lined roof of the house to shake off any icicles that might have fallen from the dome of snow above , and curled up on the bench . The dogs in the passage snored and whined in their sleep , the boy-baby in Amoraq 's deep fur hood kicked and choked and gurgled , and the mother of the newly-named puppy lay at Kotuko 's side , her eyes fixed on the bundle of sealskin , warm and safe above the broad yellow flame of the lamp . And all this happened far away to the north , beyond Labrador , beyond Hudson 's Strait , where the great tides heave the ice about , north of Melville Peninsula -- north even of the narrow Fury and Hecla Straits -- on the north shore of Baffin Land , where Bylot 's Island stands above the ice of Lancaster Sound like a pudding-bowl wrong side up . North of Lancaster Sound there is little we know anything about , except North Devon and Ellesmere Land ; but even there live a few scattered people , next door , as it were , to the very Pole .
XXXXX was an Inuit , -- what you call an Esquimau , -- and his tribe , some thirty persons all told , belonged to the Tununirmiut -- `` the country lying at the back of something . ''
Kadlu blood-soup choked dog-harnesses first hunting-suit pudding-bowl sealskin sleigh-team snappings