g, 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. They carry grass with them, which they ravel up
and pad into their shoes. Into this they put their feet, and then pack
the rest with more grass, tying up the top with a binder. The ropes of
the harness for our dogs are carefully sewed all over with two layers
of flannel in order to make them soft against the dogs' sides. So, as
soon as I could sit down, I started with my trusty knife to rip up the
flannel. Though my fingers were more or less frozen, I was able also
to ravel out the rope, put it into my shoes, and use my wet socks
inside my knickerbockers, where, though damp, they served to break the
wind. Then, tying the narrow strips of flannel together, I bound up
the top of the moccasins, Lapp-fashion, and carried the bandage on up
over my knee, making a ragged though most excellent puttee.

As to the garments I wore, I had opened recently a box of football
clothes I had not seen for twenty years. I had found my old Oxford
University football running shorts and a pair of Richmond Football
Club red, yellow, and black stockings, exactly as I wore them twenty
years ago. These with a flannel shirt and sweater vest were now all I
had left. Coat, hat, gloves, oilskins, everything else, were gone, and
I stood there in that odd costume, exactly as I stood twenty years ago
on a football field, reminding me of the little girl of a friend, who,
whe