beef-cans were about the igloo. Kannakut in- 

 formed me the next day that he had seen both 

 shamans eating the beef. Now, among the Es- 

 kimos; stealing from a neighbor's cache of food is 

 deemed the meanest of crimes. 



I determined to surprise Aabwook if he crept 

 into our storehouse again and hold him up to 

 public scorn. In the lean-to I placed a heavy 

 stick of wood in such a way that, if pulled a lit- 

 tle, it would fall against and tightly close the 

 door into the storeroom. Then to the stick I at- 

 tached a clothes-line which I led along the ceil- 

 ing and over the doors into the kitchen. It was 

 a good, if rough, trap. My plan was to watch 

 for Aabwook, and when he entered cut off his 

 retreat by making fast the 

 lean to door behind liim. That 

 done, I meant to keep him a 

 prisoner, until I could summon 

 the entire village to witness 

 his discomfiture. 



My wife was so filled with 

 cviriosity concerning the stick 

 and line that I was obliged 

 to take her into my confidence. 

 She at once exclaimed that 

 merely to expose the villain 

 was not the half or the quarter 

 of his deserts. The natives 

 were so much afraid of him, 

 she said, that he would go 

 unpunished. ' ' And I want 



to see him punished ? " she exclaimed with 

 energy. 



Mrs. Gambell has a kindly, generous heart and 

 is very charitable ; but this shaman had so out- 

 raged all decency toward us, and persecuted us 

 so long that her patience was gone. She was filled 

 with anxiety, too, lest in removing Aabwook 

 from the storehouse, he might stab or otherwise 

 injure me. 



" Even a scratch from his dirty old nails might 

 poison any one ! " she declared ; and in fact the 

 old rascal did look poisonous. ' ' He ought to be 

 fumigated ! He ought to be disinfected ! If we 

 can entrap him, let's smoke him with the sul- 

 phur kettle ! " 



Such a thing may appear ridiculous, but we 

 knew that the sorcerers were afraid of the white 

 man's "medicine," and so we concocted a plan 

 for fumigating Aabwook. There was a small 

 trap-door in the floor of our kitchen, under which 

 I had previously had a coal-bin and where there 

 was space enough to creep along under the floor 

 of the storehouse. I cut a hole in the storehouse 

 floor at a point where it would be concealed be- 

 hind the tiers of goods boxes, and placed the sul- 

 phur kettle there, well charged and so arranged 

 that when the sulphur was fired the fumes would 

 rise directly through the hole. 



My vigils by night was fruitless, however. 

 Aabwood did not appear, although we soon found 

 that more of our provisions had been taken. At 

 length we discovered that the pilferer crept in 



