“At the Company Hall down the beach. In about half an hour.” The room had come alive, there was movement and purpose. “I brought some passengers down with me from Barrow. They’re just here overnight, a bunch of engineers going back Outside. Look, I’ve got to change, I’ll see you there.” He was off down the hall.

Half the company decided against joining in this festivity. Their various reasons were legitimate enough. The baby sitters had been engaged until midnight only. Sleep. An early plane out. Tomorrow’s work. Bob Shelikov wrapped it up neatly for the negative side when he said, “And anyway, if you’ve seen one Eskimo dance you’ve seen ’em all.”

Certainly Bridie and Thor had seen these ceremonies countless times at winter festivals in Baranof, in Fairbanks, in Anchorage. They were as familiar as they were to the Eskimos themselves.

“Well, half an hour,” he said now. “But I think we could do with a little sleep. Doctor Kramer’s showing us through the hospital tomorrow, and you’ll want to see the schools, and Father Gilhooley has some magnificent ivory and wood carvings and altar pieces. Then there’s the dental clinic, too. Wonderful young couple there, the Native Service dentist and his wife. She’s a nurse. In the winter the Eskimo patients come in by dog sled from the villages hundreds of miles away. The whole family. Even now you’ll see more bad Eskimo teeth and good Eskimo babies in that office than—–”

“Oh, Grampa, let’s not be so worthy tomorrow, first thing in the morning, I mean.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Just wander around and look at things and talk to the people on the beach. Can’t we do your program in the afternoon?”

“You’d think Ross Guildenstern was paying for this trip instead of your grandfather,” Bridie said, with considerable bite in her tone.

But Thor only asked, mildly, “Just what have you got in mind, Christine. What do you want to do? This is your holiday, you know, not mine.”

“Chris is all mixed up. Tired, I guess,” Bridie said.

“I’m not tired! You didn’t bring me all the way up here to sit on a blue velours couch and listen to a phonograph. Good heavens!”

“What’s the child talking about?” Thor asked.

“She means, I suppose,” Bridie explained, “that Ross Guildenstern’s got some plan to show her around Oogruk. I can’t see that it’s any different from other Eskimo villages, only bigger.”

“He was bora here,” Chris said, defensively. “He said his grandmother lives here, and the aunt and uncle who brought him up after his parents died. He said he wants to show us around tomorrow morning. I don’t know why he made such a point of it.”

“I do,” Bridie said, grimly.

“Evidently you two are carrying on some kind of woman warfare that I don’t understand. We’ll see about half an hour of the dancing—after all, we’ve seen it all before, though not here. We’ll get some sleep. You do exactly what you want to do in the morning. I would like you to see a little of my plan in the afternoon.”