The foe remained unseen and
unheard. Nothing stirred, though the men scanned the woods about them
with the keen eyes of seamen and hunters.
Thorolf was seized with an inspiration. He went forward a step or two,
lifted his hand in salutation, and called,--
"Klooskap mech p'maosa?"[4] (Is Klooskap yet alive?)
There was a silence stiller than death. The Norsemen faced the ominous
thicket without moving a muscle. Some one within it called out something
which Thorolf did not understand. But no more arrows came. He tried
another sentence.
"Klooskap k-chi skitap, pechedog latogwesnuk." (Klooskap was a great man
in the country far to the northward.)
This time he made out the answer. In a swift aside he explained to his
comrades,--
"'K'putuswin' means 'let us take council.' They want to have a talk."
He managed to convey his assent to the unseen listeners, and every tree,
rock and log sprouted Skroelings. They were quite unlike the natives of
Greenland, though of copper-colored complexion.[5] These men--there were
no women among them,--were tall and sinewy, and wore their coarse black
hair knotted up on the head with a tuft of feathers. They were naked to
the waist, and wore fringed breeches of deerskin, and soft shoes
embroidered in bright colors.
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