For the first time the significance
of Bram's supply of meat, secured by the outlaw at the last moment
before starting out into the Barren, appeared to him with a
clearness that filled him with uneasiness. It meant that Bram
required three or four days' rations for himself and his pack in
crossing this sea of desolation that reached in places to the
Arctic. In that time, if necessity was driving him, he could cover
a hundred and fifty miles, while Philip could make less than a
hundred.
Until three o'clock in the afternoon he followed steadily over
Bram's trail. He would have pursued for another hour if a huge and
dome-shaped snowdrift had not risen in his path. In the big drift
he decided to make his house for the night. It was an easy matter
--a trick learned of the Eskimo. With his belt-ax he broke through
the thick crust of the drift, using care that the "door" he thus
opened into it was only large enough for the entrance of his body.
Using a snowshoe as a shovel he then began digging out the soft
interior of the drift, burrowing a two foot tunnel until he was
well back from the door, where he made himself a chamber large
enough for his sleeping-bag.
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