"This man travels for two days," said Kog, pointing to two yellow suns in thesky of the hide. "On the third day he finds the track of a kailiauk. He followsthis. He drinks melted snow, held in his mouth until it is warm. He eats driedmeat. On the third day be builds no fire. We may gather from this he is now inthe country of enemies. Toward the evening of the fourth day be sees moretracks. There are other hunters, mounted on kaiila, who, too, are following thekailiauk. It is difficult to determine their number, for they ride single file,that the prints of one beast may obscure and obliterate those of another. Hisheart is now heavy. Should he turn back? He does not know what to do. He mustdream on the matter."
"Surely," said Samos, "it could be only a coincidence."
"I do not think so," said Kog.
"This hide," said Samos, "could be nothing but the product of the crazedimagination of an ignorant savage. It might, too, be nothing more than theaccount of a strange dream."
"The organization and clarity of the account suggests rationality," said Kog.
"It is only the story of a dream," said Samos.
"Perhaps," said Kog.
"Such people do not distinguish clearly between dreams and reality," said Samos.
"They distinguish clearly between them," said Kog. "It is only that they regardboth as real."
"Please, continue," I said.
"Here, in the dream," said Kog, indicating a series of pictographs whichfollowed a small spiral line, "we see that the kailiauk invites the man to afeast. This is presumably a favorable sign. At the feast, however, in the lodgeof the kailliauk there is a dark guest. His lineaments are obscure, as you cansee. The man is afraid. He senses great power in this dark guest. The kailiauk,however, tells the man not to be afraid. The man takes meat from the hands ofthe dark guest. It will be his ally and protector, the kailiauk tells him. Hemay take it for his medicine. The man awakens. He is very frightened. He isafraid of this strange medicine. The dream is strong, however, and he knows itcannot be repudiated. Henceforth he knows his medicine helper is the mysteriousdark guest."
"From where," asked Samos, "does this man think he obtained this medicinehelper?"
"Surely the man will think he obtained it from the medicine world," said Kog.
"It seems an interesting anticipatory dream," I said.
"Surely the dream is ambiguous," said Samos. "See? The lineaments of the darkguest are unclear."
"True," I said. "Yet something of its size, and of its awesomeness, and force,particularly within a lodge, as evident."
"You will also notice," said Kog, "that it sits behind fire. That is the placeof honor."
"It could all be a coincidence," said Samos.
"That is quite true," I said. "Yet the matter is of interest.
"The man may once have seen such things, or heard of them, and forgotten them."
"That seems to me quite likely," I said.
"But why, in the dream, in this dream," asked Samos, "should the dark guestappear?"
"Possibly," I said, "because of the man's plight and need. In such a situation apowerful helper might be desired. The dream, accordingly, might have producedone."
"Of course," said Samos.
"Considering the events of the next day," said Kog "I think certain alternativeexplanations might be more likely. This is not, of course, to rule out that theman, in his quandary, and desperate straits, might not have welcomed a powerfulally."
"What do you suggest?" I asked.
"That be, earlier, during the day, saw sign of the medicine helper, but only inthe dream interpreted it."
"I see," I said.
"Even more plausibly, and interestingly," said Kog, "I suspect that the darkguest, in that moonlit snow, actually appeared to the man. The man, hungry,exhausted, striving for the dream, betwixt sleeping and waking, not being fullyaware of what was transpiring, saw it. He then incorporated, it into his dream,comprehending it within his own conceptual framework."
"That is an interesting idea," I said.
"But it is surely improbable that the paths of the man and the helper shouldcross in the vast, trackless wastes of the snowbound Barrens," said Samos.
"Not if both were following the kailiauk," said Kog.
"Why would the helper not have eaten the man?" I asked.
"Perhaps," said Kog, "because it was bunting the kailiauk, not the man. Perhapsbecause if it killed a man, it was apprehensive that other men would follow it,to kill it in turn."
"I see," I said.
"Also," said Kog, "kailiauk is better than man I know. I have eaten both."
"I see," I said.
"If the helper had visited the man," said Samos, "Would there not have beenprints in the snow?"
"Doubtless," said Kog.
"Were there prints?" asked Samos.
"No," said Kog.
"Then it was all a dream," said Samos.
"Me absence of prints would be taken by the man as evidence that the helper camefrom the medicine world," said Kog.
"Naturally," said Samos.
"Accordingly the man would not look for them," said Kog.
"It is your hypothesis, however," conjectured Samos, "that such prints existed."
"Of course," said Kog, "which then, in the vicinity of the camp, were dustedaway."
"From the point of view of the man, then," said Samos, "the dark guest wouldhave come and gone with all the silence and mystery of a guest from the medicineworld."
"Yes," said Kog.
"Interesting," said Samos.
"What is perfectly clear," said Kog, "is how the man viewed the situation,whether he was correct or not. Similarly clear, and undeniably so, are theevents of the next day. These are unmistakably and unambiguously delineated."
Kog then, with his dexterous, six- jointed, long digits, rotated the skin aquarter of a turn, continuing the story.
"In the morning," said Kog, "the man, inspired by his dream, resumed his hunt. Asnow began to fall." I noted the dots between the flat plane of the earth andthe semicircle of the sky. "The tracks, with the snow, and the wind, becameobscured. Still the man pressed on, knowing the direction of the kailiauk andfollowing the natural geodesics of the land, such as might be followed by aslow-moving beast, pawing under the snow for roots or grass. He did not fear tolose the trail. Because of his dream he was undaunted. On snowshoes, of course,he could move faster through drifted snow than the kailiauk. Indeed, over longdistances, in such snow, he could match the speed of the wading kaiila. Too, asyou know, the kailiauk seldom moves at night."
The kailiauk in question, incidentally, is the kailiauk of the Barrens. It is agigantic, dangerous beast, often standing from twenty to twenty- five hands atthe shoulder and weighing as much as four thousand pounds. It is almost neverhunted on foot except in deep snow, in which it is almost helpless. Fromkaiilaback, riding beside the stampeded animal, however, the skilled hunter cankill one with a- single arrow. He rides close to the animal, not a yard from itsside, just outside the hooking range of the trident, to supplement the strikingpower of his small bow. At this range the arrow can sink in to the feathers.
Ideally it strikes into the intestinal cavity behind the last rib, producinglarge-scale internal hemorrhaging he closely behind the left shoulder blade,thence piercing the eight-valved heart.
The hunting arrow, incidentally, has a long, tapering point, and this point isfirmly fastened to the shaft. This makes it easier to withdraw the arrow fromits target. The war arrow, on the other hand, uses an arrowhead whose base, iseither angled backwards, forming barbs, or cut straight across, the result inboth cases being to make the arrow difficult to extract from a wound. The headof the war arrow, too, is fastened less securely to the shaft than is that ofthe hunting arrow. The point thus, by intent, if the shaft is pulled out islikely to linger in the wound. Sometimes it is possible to thrust the arrowthrough the body, break off the point and then withdraw the shaft backwards. Atother times if the point becomes dislodged in the body, it is common to seek itwith a bone or greenwood probe, and then, when one has found it, attempt to workit free with a knife. There are cases where men have survived this. Muchdepends, of course, on the location of the point.