On a dog sled, an excellent Eskimo hunter controls the direction and moves freely on the snow.
There was not only a bearded hunter wearing a white fur hat on the sled, but also a dead seal pulling behind it. Several fish of various sizes were strung on the fishing line and swayed as the sled moved forward.
After turning over several snow hills, the hunter saw an igloo, pulled the reins, and the sled slid a few meters on the ground, and finally came to a steady stop.
The hunter, wearing thick gloves, rubbed the ice off his beard and was the first to drag the seal off the back of the sled. The weight of an adult seal can reach 180 kilograms, and this half-sized seal also weighs about 100 kilograms. If it is not for the help of a sleigh, even if the hunter successfully kills it, it will be difficult to bring the prey back in the ice and snow.
The hunter lifted the thick felt from the igloo, and a teenage Eskimo girl stood up: "Dad, did you catch a seal today?"
The hunter put down the seal, and seeing his daughter Tess's happy face, he couldn't help but rubbed her hair. The winter of lack of food is over, his daughter will not go hungry, how can he be unhappy
Tess ran out and hugged the sled dogs, and brought in the string of fish. There was too much food to eat at once, and it was buried under the snow, fresh and clean.
Although Tess is only ten years old, she is already a good helper in the family. She and her father packed up the seals very neatly.
"Father, look!" When Tess was washing and peeling the seal, she found a blood-stained pearl in its belly, wiped it twice with snow on the ground, and found it was a round and bright pearl, she held it up happily. Show it to the hunter.
The hunter took it and looked at it for a while. Such pearls are really rare in places like the North Pole, and they don't know what the seals ate.
Seeing that Tess liked it, he gave her the beads to play with.
The hunter took the internal organs of the seal and fed it to the dogs before returning and eating the meat of the seal with his daughter.
There is no place to light a fire in the ice and snow. Eskimos have always lived on raw meat. Recently, with the progress of society, except in places like the extreme north, they rarely live in igloos and eat raw meat. Hunters and their daughters are a minority one of the adherents.
After eating the seal meat, Tess lay on the felt and played with beads.
There are many Eskimos nearby, and everyone helps each other. The hunter took out most of the seal meat and gave it to the neighbors.
Tess was alone in the igloo, tossing the beads up and down. Eskimos originally migrated from Asia thousands of years ago. They are short, yellow-skinned, and black-haired. They are typical Mongolians. Tess looks like a little girl from China.
When the hunter came back, he was also happy to see that Tess was still playing with the bead, and that his daughter liked it. Tess's mother died during childbirth. For so many years, he has raised Tess with goat's milk and kept her from worrying about food with his hunting skills, but he really doesn't know how to accompany Shi Lai Playing with a 10-year-old girl... even his family's sled dogs are better at making the little girl happy than him.
Located in the polar day circle of the Arctic, there is no night in summer. At this time, at the turn of winter and summer, the night is mixed with blizzards, which come very late.
Because she lived in an igloo, she couldn't light a fire at night, otherwise the igloo would melt. The hunter stepped Tess on a thick bearskin felt. The hunting during the day made him exhausted, and he soon fell asleep at the other end of the house. up.
Tess didn't know why tonight, she was full but couldn't sleep.
The bead that was taken from the seal's belly during the day was held by Tess in her hand. In the cold night, the bead seemed to carry a hint of warmth, which made her unwilling to let go.
Tess had also heard several fairy tales, and this bead was so strange that she always felt that there was a fairy hidden in it.
Of course, the so-called fairy did not come out of the bead until the little girl kept her eyes open until midnight and was too sleepy to fall asleep. On the contrary, the aura of the water around the beads fluctuated violently, which is why the little girl couldn't put it down.
The next day was a sunny day. The hunter had eaten seal meat and went to discuss matters with his neighbors early in the morning.
Tess was playing with the sled dogs at home, and the aura of water around the beads became stronger and stronger, and the affinity of water made people even more reluctant to put it down.
At lunch time, the hunter came back.
It turned out that they had accumulated a lot of seal skins throughout the winter, and they didn't want to be undercut by fur traders wandering among the Eskimo tribes, so they decided to go to the town to sell them, so they had to go out for a few days and asked Tess to stay at home. , don't go out at night.
Tess agreed absently, her mind preoccupied with the bead.
The hunter had told his daughter to move out the sealskins that had been accumulated throughout the winter, load a full sleigh cart with food, and set off with food.
Tess is very active by nature, and she was able to stay in the house obediently for the first two days, but it was cold and snowy, and no one talked to her, and even the sled dogs left with her. Seeing the strong wind mixed with the sound of snow slag hitting the door felt, I couldn't sleep anymore.
Hearing a whimper near the igloo, Tess was frightened and curious, turned over from the felt, and quietly opened the door felt.
The neat row of footprints in front of the igloo has not been completely covered by the wind and snow.
Hey, could it be that father is back
Every time her father came back from the town, he would always bring back a lot of shiny candies. Tess thought of the smell, and forgot the previous whimpering, thinking that her father was wearing a big woolen coat at a neighbor's house not far away. Just ran out along the footprints.
There was a snowstorm in the dark night, and the little girl was blown by the wind so that her eyes were closed, and she couldn't tell the way. She just lowered her head and walked along the footprints, but she didn't realize that this direction was not leading to the neighbor's house at all.
Tess didn't know how long she had walked, but her legs felt more and more stiff and heavier, and her body was frozen.
Looking up and looking around, Tess finally realized that she was lost! On such a snowy night, if you get lost on the snow, you will die.
Little Tess finally remembered that her father told her not to go out at night, her little mouth was black and blue from the cold, and she didn't cry for a long time.
At this moment, little Tess heard movement in front of her. She tried to open her eyes and looked around. There was a strong figure a few meters away. Could it be her father
Little Tess ran two steps, saw the figure clearly, and tightly covered her mouth—where is that father? It was clearly a polar bear with some meat in its hand, and the red rope on it was tied by Tess herself!
It turned out that it wasn't the father who came back, but the polar bear was stealing the seals and fish that Tess' family buried in the snow outside the igloo!
Polar bears also smell the smell of strangers. They are the least picky animals. When they can't catch fish in summer, they will spend the Arctic summer on carrion. Naturally, they also want to eat people, especially those who are not aggressive like Tess. Children... The polar bear dropped the meat in its hand and rushed like Tess.
Tess turned around and stumbled two steps before falling to the ground, and the bead in her hand fell out, and Tess couldn't see where it fell in the dark night.
With both feet sunk in the snow, the ten-year-old Tess was so frightened that she even forgot to cry. The polar bear's paws kept enlarging in her eyes. Tess curled up into a ball, thinking of her father, trembling.
At this moment, a beam of dazzling brilliance burst out from the direction where the beads fell, and the polar bear seemed to have sensed something, and took two steps back in fright.
Tess opened her eyes wide, watching the beads she had been playing with for a few days, exuding dazzling light, gradually floating into the air, and in the blink of an eye, a woman in a skirt suddenly appeared at the place where the beads shone—
Against the light, Tess could not see the woman's face clearly. The luminous beads were worn on her wrist, like a small sun, lighting up the dark night of the Arctic.
Wearing such a thin and beautiful skirt, this woman who suddenly appeared is a fairy who came to save her
Ten-year-old Tess stared blankly at the fairy's approaching figure, and belatedly shed tears of fear.
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