“Look here, old fellow; you were brightening up, now you are going back again. Let’s go to bed and have a good long sleep in the warm. What about the dog?”
“Yes, what about him?”
“I suppose we mustn’t turn him out again on a night like this.”
“Impossible.”
“But you know what these brutes are. He’ll be rousing up and eating our candles and belts—anything he can get hold of; but I suppose we must risk it.”
The door now being rattled loudly by the tremendous wind, was once more made secure, the blanket replaced, and then, after well making up the fire with a couple of heavy logs, the weary pair were about to creep into their skin sleeping-bags when they were startled into full wakefulness again, for a fierce gust seemed to seize and shake the hut, and then, as the wind went roaring away, there was a wild moaning cry, and a sharp report from close at hand.