But that chance
was now cut off. However, I kept the matches, hoping that I might dry
them if I lived through the night. While working at the dogs, about
every five minutes I would stand up and wave my hands toward the land.
I had no flag, and I could not spare my shirt, for, wet as it was, it
was better than nothing in that freezing wind, and, anyhow, it was
already nearly dark.
Unfortunately, the coves in among the cliffs are so placed that only
for a very narrow space can the people in any house see the sea.
Indeed, most of them cannot see it at all, so that I could not in the
least expect any one to see me, even supposing it had been daylight.
Not daring to take any snow from the surface of my pan to break the
wind with, I piled up the carcasses of my dogs. With my skin rug I
could now sit down without getting soaked. During these hours I had
continually taken off all my clothes, wrung them out, swung them one
by one in the wind, and put on first one and then the other inside,
hoping that what heat there was in my body would thus serve to dry
them. In this I had been fairly successful.
My feet gave me most trouble, for they immediately got wet again
because my thin moccasins were easily soaked through on the snow. I
suddenly thought of the way in which the Lapps who tend our reindeer
manage for dry socks.
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