310 A DAY AT FRAMHEIM 



What in the world does the man mean? We were 

 standing on the bare Barrier. 



"Do you hear that noise? That's Hassel sawing 

 wood." 



Now he bent down and raised the heavy trap-door 

 easily with the help of the weight. Broad steps of snow 

 led down, deep down, into the Barrier. We left the 

 trap-door open, so as to have the benefit of the little 

 daylight there was. My host went first; I followed. 

 After descending four or five steps, we came to a door- 

 way which was covered with a woollen curtain. We 

 pushed this aside. The sound that had first reached 

 me as a low rumbling now became sharper, and I could 

 plainly hear that it was caused by sawing. We went 

 in. The room we entered was long and narrow, cut out 

 of the Barrier. On a solid shelf of snow there lay barrel 

 after barrel arranged in exemplary order ; if they were 

 all full of paraffin, I began to understand Lindstrom's 

 extravagance in lighting his fire in the morning: 

 here was paraffin enough for several years. In the 

 middle of the room a lantern was hanging, an ordinary 

 one with wire netting round the glass. In a dark room 

 it certainly would not have given much light, but in 

 these white surroundings it shone like the sun. A 

 Primus lamp was burning on the floor. The ther- 

 mometer, which hung a little way from the Primus, 

 showed -5 F., so Hassel could hardly complain of the 

 heat, but he had to saw, so it did not matter. We 



