Captain strode to him with outstretched hand. "You're a man," he
said. "You've got the nerve, George, and you'll go with me, won't
you?"
"What! Me?" questioned the sailor vaguely. His wondering glance
left Captain, and drifted round the circle of shamed and silent
faces--then he straightened stiffly and cried: "Will I go with you?
Certainly! I'll go to ---- with you."
Ready hands harnessed the dogs, dragged from protected nooks where
they sought cover from the storm which moaned and whistled round the
low houses. Endless ragged folds of sleet whirled out of the north,
then writhed and twisted past, vanishing into the grey veil which
shrouded the landscape in a twilight gloom.
The fierce wind sank the cold into the aching flesh like a knife and
stiffened the face to a whitening mask, while a fusillade of frozen
ice-particles beat against the eyeballs with blinding fury.
As Captain emerged from his cabin, furred and hooded, he found a long
train of crouching, whining animals harnessed and waiting, while
muffled figures stocked the sled with robes and food and stimulants.
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