United States or Ghana ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
My sleeping-bag rested on a raised platform in one corner, and at a favorable moment I examined the bag. It had not been tampered with, but I noticed a string turning out through a chink between the logs. I found it came from a thick layer of straw under my bed, and had been tied to the end of a flatly coiled lasso.
Although there was neither spear nor gun, the anxious boy was somewhat comforted to find an axe strapped in its accustomed place; also a blanket, sleeping-bag, and musk-ox skin, besides a mass of frozen blubber, but there was nothing else of an eatable nature. There was, however, a box containing the captain's sextant, the electrical machine, and a packet of dynamite cartridges.
The Colonel was nearly suffocated by the time he was pulled out, and after that object-lesson he stuck to snow-shoes every hour of the twenty-four, except those spent in the sleeping-bag. But few things on earth are more exasperating than trying to work mounted on clumsy, long web-feet that keep jarring against, yet holding you off from, the tree you are felling, or the fire you are cooking over.
When I had satisfied my hunger, I rolled out my sleeping-bag and crept into it. I stretched my aching limbs and did not move again. Once I awoke, drowsily feeling the warmth of the fire, and I heard Frank say: "He's asleep, dead to the world!" "He's all in," said Jones. "Riding's what did it You know how a horse tears a man to pieces."
As Greely complained of cold, Colwell gave him his gloves, and persuaded him to go back to his sleeping-bag. This was lying under the fallen tent-cloth, which the party had been too weak or too discouraged to raise up and disengage.
Supper finished, the little portable tent was set up, more wood heaped on the fire, and the camp pitched for the night. Donald was tired out. After the sheep were bedded down around them, he crept only too gladly into his sleeping-bag and was soon oblivious of the range, the herd, and even Sandy himself. When he awoke it was with a sense of being cramped within a small space. He opened his eyes.
One of the children sat up and whimpered. The Colonel growled sleepily. "You black devil!" admonished the Boy under his breath. "Look what you're about. Come here, sir." He pushed the devil down between the sleeping-bag and the nearest baby. The Colonel gave a distinct grunt of disapproval, and then, "Keepin' that brute in here?"
Twice the usual number of penguin steaks were cooked at breakfast, and the ones intended for supper were kept hot in the pots by wrapping up in coats, etc. "Clark put our saucepanful in his sleeping-bag to-day to keep it hot, and it really was a great success in spite of the extra helping of reindeer hairs that it contained. In this way we can make ten penguin skins do for one day."
He was counting, counting to himself, always counting. The Gaffer watched him furtively. Since his recovery, though his lips moved frequently, Long Ede had scarcely uttered a word. But towards noon on the fourth day he said an extraordinary thing. "There's that sleeping-bag I took with me the other night. I wonder if 'tis on the roof still. It will be froze pretty stiff by this.
Praises of the new tent were heard on every hand, and Prestrud and Johansen were in the seventh heaven over their double sleeping-bag. I fancy the others were very well satisfied with their single ones. And with this the most important part of the autumn's work came to an end. The foundation was solidly laid; now we had only to raise the edifice.
Word Of The Day