WINTER QUARTERS 143 



although he was not nearly as bright as the half-breed Gallikar, 

 he could read an ordinary book and had some ideas about 

 arithmetic. 



A strange custom, common to all households where a white 

 man has married an Eskimo woman, was practised in this 

 house. The husband does not eat with his wife and children, 

 but takes his meals in solitary grandeur, at the table of the 

 house, while down on the floor the mother of his own children 

 and the rest of the family are eating as best they may. As far 

 as I remember I have seen only one case where this custom 

 was dispensed with. 



Sunday the i3th came with fine, warm weather, hardly below 

 the freezing point, and, in spite of Ned's remonstrances, Fiedler 

 and I started in the early morning, although the looks of the 

 sky were not promising. Over the mountains it had a dark, 

 leaden colour, while higher up the clouds had taken a golden 

 red colour from the sun which now would return in a few days. 

 There was a strong wind in the mountains, and large drifts of 

 snow were whirled into the air, giving the impression of 

 smoking volcanoes. 



But thinking ourselves wiser than the men who had been in 

 the country for years, and longing to get home to lend a hand 

 in the preparations for the sledge trip which had now been in 

 progress for more than a month, we started. 



The first day we made a fine run, but after we had camped, 

 eaten our supper, and turned in, we heard something like a 

 sigh in the air. The sound came once more, and for a few 

 seconds the tent was flapping with a light breath of wind, and 

 then everything was quiet again. But not for long. A few 

 minutes later we heard the well-known rustling of snow drifting 

 along the surface, and before we had time to comment on that, 

 the wind struck us with irresistible force. Less than five 

 minutes later two of our tent poles broke and the tent fell on 

 the top of us. 



We tried to get out to build a wind-break of snowblocks, but 

 it was almost impossible to stand against the furious gusts of 

 wind, and whenever we had got a block of snow cut out and 

 set up the wind took it away at once. It was pitch dark, and 

 we dared not go away from the tent to look for better snow, so 

 we gave it up, crawled back into our disabled tent and sleeping 



