“Billy-Bah’s” husband was very proud of his wife, for besides having travelled to the white man’s country and seen wonderful things, she was one of the best seamstresses in the tribe, and kept her husband’s clothing, as well as her own, in good order, though she was now only fifteen years old. But AH-NI-GHI´-TO was sorry to see that she kept herself just as dirty as her companions. It seemed as though she thought she had bathed enough, while in AH-NI-GHI´-TO’S home, to last her during her lifetime.
After AH-NI-GHI´-TO’S father had selected the Eskimos who were to help him move the great heaven-born stone, the old ship turned her nose toward Meteorite Island, where this mass of iron lay. It was snowing so thick and fast that one could not see any distance ahead, and AH-NI-GHI´-TO thought she must be sailing through the clouds, because, when she looked beyond the ship, she could see nothing but whirling snow-flakes above, below, and all about her. The ship moved along very slowly, feeling her way carefully, to avoid collision with the floating icebergs, numbers of which were to be seen before the snow descended. At last the island was safely reached, and AH-NI-GHI´-TO’S father, with the help of the Eskimos, at once began his search for the great meteorite. Everything was now buried under the snow, which was still falling fast. The great iron rock was soon found, however, and the snow removed; then the work of getting it alongside the ship was begun. This was no easy thing, for it was found to weigh nearly one hundred tons.
For a week everybody worked. The Eskimos, with AH-NI-GHI´-TO’S father to lead them, worked by night,—for you know it was daylight all the time, even when the sun was behind the clouds,—and the captain of the ship, with his men, worked during the day.
The great iron stone was shaped like one of the Eskimo tents, and for that reason the natives called it “tupic.” They chatted all the time they were at work, wondering what the woman could have done that she should have been cast out of the sky with her dog and her tent. “Billy-Bah” told AH-NI-GHI´-TO that she had heard her great-grandfather say that his grandfather told him when these stones first fell from the heavens they were red-hot, but after they had cooled, they looked just like other rocks about them, and none of his people thought they were any different, until one day one of the dusky hunters of the tribe had shot his last arrow into a polar bear, and the animal, though wounded, had managed to escape, leaving the hunter without any arrows.