Every one turned to Chealuk for confirmation and she said simply,

“It is true.”

The Eskimos were struck dumb with horror.  This, then, was the cause of their trouble.  For the women to work with any part of the reindeer while the men were hunting seals was one of the greatest affronts that could be offered the Great Spirit.  Torngak had been insulted and angered.  He must be appeased and mollified at any cost.

Tuavituk, the Angakok, it was decided, must do some conjuring.  He must get into immediate communication with Torngak and learn the spirit’s wishes and demands and what must be done to dispel the evil charm that Chealuk had worked by her thoughtlessness.  Tauvituk was quite willing—­indeed anxious—­to do this, but he demanded to be well paid for it, and every man had to contribute some valuable pelt or article of clothing.

When all preparations for the seance had been made the Angakok’s head was covered and in a few moments he began to utter untelligible exclamations, which were shortly punctuated by shouts and screams and ravings.  He fell to the floor and seemed stricken with a fit, and Bob thought the man had gone stark mad.  He struck out and grasped those within his reach, and they were glad to escape from his iron clutch.  For several minutes this wild frenzy lasted before he said an intelligible word.

“The deer!  The deer!  The deer’s sinew!  Chealuk!  Chealuk!  Chealuk!  Torngak!  The evil spirit is in Chealuk!  She must go!  Must go!  Send Chealuk away!  Send her away!  Send her away!  Send her away!”

Finally from sheer exhaustion he quieted down and came out of his trance.  He probably thought that he had given them their value’s worth and what they had wanted, and that they should be satisfied.

It was now decreed that, this being the direct command of Torngak, Chealuk must be expelled from the camp.  Some even asserted that she should be killed, but the majority decided that as Torngak had said merely that “Chealuk must go” that meant only that she must be sent away.  If this did not prove sufficient to counteract their ill luck, why she could, after a reasonable time, be sought out and dispatched, if she had not in the meantime perished.

The feeble old woman heard it all with outward stoic indifference.  It was a part of her religion and she probably thought the punishment quite just, and whatever shrinking of spirit she felt, she hid it heroically from the others.  To have been killed immediately would have been more humane than banishment, for the latter only meant a slower but just as sure a death, from exposure and starvation.

To Bob, who had listened intently and was able to grasp the situation in a general way, it seemed heartless in the extreme; but his protests would not only have been powerless to move the Eskimos from their purpose, but in all probability would have worked harm for himself and to no avail.  These people that at first had seemed so amiable and hospitable, and almost childlike in their nature, had been by their heathen superstitions suddenly transformed into cruel, unsympathetic savages.