A Mans Woman | Page 7

Bennett glanced at the tea leaves and handed them back to Ferriss, and
in answer to his remonstrance produced a pouch of his own.
"Tobacco!" cried Ferriss, astonished; "why, I thought we smoked our
last aboard ship."
"No, I saved a little of mine."
"Oh, well," answered Ferriss, trying to interfere with Bennett, who was
filling his pipe, "I don't want your tobacco; this tea does very well."
"I tell you I have eight-tenths of a kilo left," lied Bennett, lighting the
pipe and handing it back to him. "Whenever you want a smoke you can
set to me."
Bennett lit a pipe of his own, and the two began to smoke.
"'M, ah!" murmured Ferriss, drawing upon the pipe ecstatically, "I
thought I never was going to taste good weed again till we should get
home."
Bennett said nothing. There was a long silence. Home! what did not
that word mean for them? To leave all this hideous, grisly waste of ice
behind, to have done with fighting, to rest, to forget responsibility, to
have no more anxiety, to be warm once more--warm and well fed and
dry--to see a tree again, to rub elbows with one's fellows, to know the
meaning of warm handclasps and the faces of one's friends.
"Dick," began Bennett abruptly after a long while, "if we get stuck here
in this damned ice I'm going to send you and probably Metz on ahead
for help. We'll make a two-man kyack for you to use when you reach

the limit of the pack, but besides the kyack you'll carry nothing but
your provisions, sleeping-bags, and rifle, and travel as fast as you can."
Bennett paused for a moment, then in a different voice continued: "I
wrote a letter last night that I was going to give you in case I should
have to send you on such a journey, but I think I might as well give it to
you now."
He drew from his pocket an envelope carefully wrapped in oilskin.
"If anything should happen to the expedition--to me--I want you to see
that this letter is delivered."
He paused again.
"You see, Dick, it's like this; there's a girl--" his face flamed suddenly,
"no--no, a woman, a grand, noble, man's woman, back in God's country
who is a great deal to me--everything in fact. She don't know, hasn't a
guess, that I care. I never spoke to her about it. But if anything should
turn up I should want her to know how it had been with me, how much
she was to me. So I've written her. You'll see that she gets it, will you?"
He handed the little package to Ferriss, and continued indifferently, and
resuming his accustomed manner:
"If we get as far as Wrangel Island you can give it back to me. We are
bound to meet the relief ships or the steam whalers in that latitude. Oh,
you can look at the address," added Bennett as Ferriss, turning the
envelope bottom side up, was thrusting it into his breast pocket; "you
know her even better than I do. It's Lloyd Searight."
Ferriss's teeth shut suddenly upon his pipestem.
Bennett rose. "Tell Muck Tu," he said, "in case I don't think of it again,
that the dogs must be fed from now on from those that die. I shall want
the dog biscuit and dried fish for our own use."
"I suppose it will come to that," answered Ferriss.
"Come to that!" returned Bennett grimly; "I hope the dogs themselves
will live long enough for us to eat them. And don't misunderstand," he
added; "I talk about our getting stuck in the ice, about my not pulling
through; it's only because one must foresee everything, be prepared for
everything. Remember--I--shall--pull--through."
But that night, long after the rest were sleeping, Ferriss, who had not
closed his eyes, bestirred himself, and, as quietly as possible, crawled
from his sleeping-bag. He fancied there was some slight change in the
atmosphere, and wanted to read the barometer affixed to a stake just

outside the tent. Yet when he had noted that it was, after all, stationary,
he stood for a moment looking out across the ice with unseeing eyes.
Then from a pocket in his furs he drew a little folder of morocco. It was
pitiably worn, stained with sea-water, patched and repatched, its frayed
edges sewed together again with ravellings of cloth and sea-grasses.
Loosening with his teeth the thong of walrus-hide with which it was
tied, Ferriss opened it and held it to the faint light of an aurora just
paling in the northern sky.
"So," he muttered after a while, "so--Bennett, too--"
For a long time Ferriss stood looking at Lloyd's picture till the purple
streamers in the north faded into the