336 SHORT STALKS 



of our party inside, the door could not have been shut. 

 An inner chamber about the same size was filled with 

 utensils and the produce of the season. I believe 

 that eventually our men slept in this place, on the 

 top of the cheeses. AVhen we afterwards visited another 

 scBter we took the hint from them, for this inner room is 

 always kept clean. The floor makes a capital bed when 

 well covered a foot deep with reindeer moss and heather, 

 and Kenny and I just filled it from wall to wall I would 

 only warn others from my own painful experience, that a 

 column of milk-pails eight feet high in the neighbourhood 

 of one's head is not a very stable piece of furniture. 



On arriving at Holl^ue, we turned out some of the 

 men, that we might make our way to the fire with our 

 frying-pan, a fortunate purchase from Sundal, without 

 which we should have been badly off indeed. I had 

 besides one of those neat little copper toys called, I think, 

 a Eussian Stove. The spirit lamp vaporises some more 

 spirit which is contained in an inner vessel, and which 

 rushes out throuo-h a narrow orifice as a lono- tono'ue of 

 superheated flame. This plays on the copper lid of the 

 thing and would doubtless cook a lark or piece of bacon in 

 a few minutes, if the handle did not get so hot that it was 

 invariably upset on the floor. Besides the spirits of wine 

 always gets among the venison in some mysterious way. 

 This is tantalising to such appetites as we had developed, 

 1jut, on the other hand, the ambitious little roar which the 

 baby furnace makes while it does all this, is distinctly 

 comforting. Our frying-pan was a much more substantial 

 piece of furniture, fifteen inches in diameter. It M'as filled 

 every morning with collops cut fresh from the carcase of a 



