The Big Otter | Page 3

by a clump of spruce firs of small size but
picturesque appearance.
"Behold our camp!" said Lumley.
"Not inviting at present," said I, as we slowly toiled up the mound, for
we were weary, having walked about twenty miles, weighted with
heavy flannel-lined deerskin-coats, blankets, and cooking utensils,
besides a small quantity of pemmican, sugar, tea, and ship's biscuit,
axes and firebags. It is true, the cooking utensils were few and simple,
consisting of only two tin kettles and two tin mugs.
Dreary indeed--lonesome, desolate, and eerie was our mound when we
got to the top of it. By that time the sun had set, and a universal ghostly
grey, fast deepening into night, banished every sensation of joy aroused
by the previous lightness. Although the scene and circumstances were
nothing new to us we could not shake off the depressing influence, but
we did not allow that to interfere with our action. Silently, but
vigorously--for the cold was increasing--we felled several small dead
trees, which we afterwards cut into lengths of about four feet. Then we
cleared a space in the snow of about ten or twelve feet in diameter until
we reached the solid earth, using our snow-shoes as shovels. What we

threw out of the hole formed an embankment round it, and as the snow
lay at that spot full four feet deep, we thus raised the surrounding wall
of our chamber to a height of six feet, if not more. Standing on the edge
of it in the ever-deepening twilight, and looking down into the abyss,
which was further darkened by the overspreading pines, this hole in the
snow suggested a tomb rather than a bed.
At one end of it we piled up the firewood. Extending from that towards
the other end, we spread a carpet of pine-branches, full six inches thick.
To do all this took a considerable amount of time and labour, and when
Lumley stood up at last to strike a light with flint, steel, and tinder, we
felt pretty well exhausted. The night had by that time become
profoundly dark, insomuch that we had to grope for the various articles
we required.
"We've been rather late of beginning to make the camp," said I, as I
watched the sparks.
"Never mind, Max, my boy, we shall soon be all right," replied my
friend, as one of the sparks at last caught on the tinder. In a few seconds
the spark was blown into a blaze, and placed in the midst of a handful
of dry moss and thin chips. This was applied to some dry twigs under
our piled-up logs, and a vivid tongue of flame shot upward.
Blessed fire! Marvellous light! It is a glorious, wonder-working
influence, well chosen by the Almighty as one of his titles. There is no
change in Nature so intense as that from darkness to light as well in
physical as in spiritual things. No sudden change from heat to cold, or
from calm to storm; no transformation ever achieved in the most
gorgeous of pantomimes, could have the startling effect, or produce the
splendid contrast that resulted from the upward flash of that first tongue
of fire. It was a vivid tongue, for the materials had been well laid; a few
seconds later it was a roaring tongue, with a host of lesser tongues
around it--all dancing, leaping, cheering, flashing, as if with ineffable
joy at their sudden liberation, and the resulting destruction of dismal
darkness.
Our snow-abyss was no longer black and tomb-like. Its walls sparkled

as though encrusted with diamonds; its carpet of pine-branches shone
vividly green; the tree-stems around rose up like red-hot pillars, more
or less intense in colour, according to distance; the branching canopy
overhead appeared to become solid with light, and the distance around
equally solid with ebony blackness, while we, who had caused the
transformation, stood in the midst of the ruddy blaze like jovial red-hot
men!
"There's nothing like a fire," I remarked with some enthusiasm.
"Except supper," said Lumley.
"Gross creature!" I responded, as he went about the preparation of
supper with a degree of zest which caused me to feel that my epithet
was well deserved.
"Gross creature!" he repeated some time afterwards with a pleasant
smile of intense enjoyment, as he sat in front of the blaze sipping a can
of hot tea, and devouring pemmican and biscuit with avidity. "No, Max,
I am not a gross creature. Your intellects are probably benumbed by the
cold. If phrenologists are right in dividing the human brain into
compartments, wherein the different intellectual powers are said to be
located, I should think that some of those chambers lying nearest to the
top of the skull are apt to freeze at a temperature of forty below zero, in