housewarming, which was accomplished by means of seal-oil and a wick made
from cotton calking, came the hunting for our winter's meat and the
building of the second hut. It was a simple affair, now, to go forth in
the morning and return by noon with a boatload of seals. And then, while
I worked at building the hut, Maud tried out the oil from the blubber and
kept a slow fire under the frames of meat. I had heard of jerking beef
on the plains, and our seal-meat, cut in thin strips and hung in the
smoke, cured excellently.

The second hut was easier to erect, for I built it against the first, and
only three walls were required. But it was work, hard work, all of it.
Maud and I worked from dawn till dark, to the limit of our strength, so
that when night came we crawled stiffly to bed and slept the animal-like
sleep exhaustion. And yet Maud declared that she had never felt better
or stronger in her life. I knew this was true of myself, but hers was
such a lily strength that I feared she would break down. Often and
often, her last-reserve force gone, I have seen her stretched flat on her
back on the sand in the way she had of resting and recuperating. And
then she would be up on her feet and toiling hard as ever. Where she
obtained this strength was the marvel to me.

"Think of the long rest this winter," was her reply to my remonstrances.
"Why, we'll be clamorous for something to do."

We held a housewarming in my hut the night it was roofed. It was the end
of the third day of a fierce storm which had swung around the compass
from the south-east to the north-west, and which was then blowing
directly in upon us. The beaches of the outer cove were thundering with
the surf, and even in our land-locked inner cove a respectable sea was
breaking. No high backbone of island sheltered us from the wind, and it
whistled and bellowed about the hut till at times I feared for the
strength of the walls. The skin roof, stretched tightly as a drumhead, I
had thought, sagged and bellied with every gust; and innumerable
interstices in the walls, not so tightly stuffed with moss as Maud had
supposed, disclosed themselves. Yet the seal-oil burned brightly and we
were warm and comfortable.

It was a pleasant evening indeed, and we voted that as a social function
on Endeavour Island it had not yet been eclipsed. Our minds were at
ease. Not only had we resigned ourselves to the bitter winter, but we
were prepared for it. The