INTO THE STORM 



to one leg, and chewed the knot loose; then he 

 slipped the traces off one by one and looped them 

 over his other leg, so that all through the per- 

 formance it was a case of seventeen dogs harnessed 

 to Julius's legs, while he sat tight and made the 

 sledge come along with him. My heart was in 

 my mouth until the risky business was over. All 

 day long I sat on the sledge with my back to the 

 wind, and wondered how the drivers were finding 

 the way. It was evening before I got any inkling 

 of our whereabouts, and then the way led us 

 uphill, and I knew that we had left the sea-ice 

 and were on the land. There followed a cold and 

 dreary hour of bumping and jolting over rocks 

 and up sudden little cliffs, while the men were 

 constantly out of sight in the storm : then Kristian's 

 voice said "A-ah, ah," and the dogs' stopped. 

 " Stopped " is hardly expressive enough : at the 

 word their legs seemed to collapse under them, 

 and they curled themselves up where they dropped. 



I confess to a feeling of loneliness as I stood 

 beside the sledge, with the snow driving silently past 

 and nothing to see at all but the dim outlines of the 

 dogs as they curled round and went to sleep. The 

 occasional moan of the wind made things worse : the 

 drivers had vanished into the gloom, and I seemed 

 to be alone on the mountain. But a ghostly form 

 loomed up, and big Julius, like the thoughtful 

 fellow he is, had a word of encouragement to say. 

 " We shall build a snow house here." 



" Do you know where we are ? " I asked him. 



" On the proper sledge-track over Kiglapeit, of 

 course," he said ; and his tone sounded rather 



surprised, as if it were a preposterous idea that we 



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