chap vi LOW SOUND ioi 



far than when we were here before, but as many bogs and 

 even more water to wade through. Little recked we of wet. 

 Not a word did we speak, but just plodded on, passing the 

 foot of gully after gully, and wondering when the last would 

 come. Two more ptarmigan treated me as the others had 

 done. I knocked some feathers out of one with my ice-axe, 

 but could not catch him. In this country a second-rate 

 archer might have good sport. Birds and reindeer are just 

 tame enough for such a person to stalk with some chance 

 of success. 



At eight o'clock the last slope was mounted, and the 

 green tent lay as we left it. Nothing was changed but the 

 wind. A fatal mutation ! involving the repitching of the 

 tent, for it would be blown away unless its door were leeward. 

 The pegs, so securely planted, had to be hauled up, every 

 article of baggage to be drawn forth, everything moved and 

 re-arranged. It was half-an-hour's work, performed by both 

 in a silence as complete as it was full of meaning. The 

 cooking apparatus and stores were gathered before the door. 

 Then at last we could doff our wet nether garments, plunge 

 up to the knees in the warm reindeer-skin bags, and take supper 

 in hand. O hot ration-cartridges, red, blue, or of whatever 

 colour ! O succulent cocoa, and slowly uncondensing milk,, 

 and ye, O Reading biscuits, covered with butter and brown 

 sugar ! — long will the memory of you abide in the thankful 

 bosoms of two famished bogfarers. The times of our going 

 to sleep and of our next day's rising were not recorded. 



