The task employed him less than an
hour, and when his bed was made, and he stood in front of the door
to his igloo, his spirits began to return. The assurance that he
had a home at his back in which neither cold nor storm could reach
him inspirited him with an optimism which he had not felt at any
time during the day.
From the timber he had borne a precious bundle of finely split
kindlings of pitch-filled spruce, and with a handful of these he
built himself a tiny fire over which, on a longer stick brought
for the purpose, he suspended his tea pail, packed with snow. The
crackling of the flames set him whistling. Darkness was falling
swiftly about him. By the time his tea was ready and he had warmed
his cold bannock and bacon the gloom was like a black curtain that
he might have slit with a knife. Not a star was visible in the
sky. Twenty feet on either side of him he could not see the
surface of the snow. Now and then he added a bit of his kindling
to the dying embers, and in the glow of the last stick he smoked
his pipe, and as he smoked he drew from his wallet the golden
snare.
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