The fact that another walrus
had been killed was a relief to him, but did not dissipate his grief
for the lost line, which was the last we had.
About half-past ten o'clock that night, while we were eating some
boiled walrus meat and entrails (about the fifth meal since four
o'clock on the afternoon, when the meat arrived), some one came to the
entrance of the igloo and handed in Toolooah's walrus line, saying Joe
and Blucher had found the walrus dead upon the ice near where it was
struck, the animal having crawled out and died after the hunters had
left. Now for the first time Toolooah's face brightened up, and he was
so impatient to hear the circumstances of the recovery of the lost game
that, late as it was, he went to Joe's igloo to inquire. He soon
returned with an exceedingly woebegone expression, for which I failed
to elicit an explanation until the morning, when I found out from Joe
that, according to the laws and customs of the Inuits the walrus
belonged to him because he found it.
"What interest has Toolooah in it?" said I.
"None," was Joe's reply. "All over here country same way. Man he
strikee walrus; let he go again; somebody else findee; he walrus."
"Well, Joe, suppose the somebody else lets the walrus go, how is it
then?"
"All same way."
"So Toolooah has no interest in that walrus he killed and that you let
go again?"
"Yes, all same way here country.
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