MacDonald’s was a voice that seemed to stir the heart-blood of even Gruff. Hear him to-day, for instance, while the great caravan of daring explorers was making its swift but almost silent passage over the tableland, and close to the hills—
“There is many a man of the Cameron clan
That has followed his chief to the field,
And sworn to protect him or die by his side,
For a Cameron never can yield.”
And big, burly MacDonald swung his arm out towards the everlasting hills as he sang the next verse—
“I hear the pibroch sounding, sounding,
Deep o’er yon mountains and glens,
While quick springing footsteps are trampling the heath,
’Tis the march of the Cameron men.”
This was a record day, in every sense of the word—a record in its sunshine, its warmth, its joyfulness, and its mileage covered. Fancy, thirty miles with all those burdens!
* * * * *
Another fortnight and over has passed and gone, and the scene is changed somewhat. A fortnight of almost forced marches, of toils and struggles with nature, most bravely and pluckily borne by all hands. Indeed, there had been an utter absence of selfishness. Every one in sunshine, storm, or tempest, seemed to think of others all the time, and not of himself.
But it had been hard work; oh, ever so hard and toilsome.
And now a camp must be formed, and a hut built—a huge, square igloo, built of blocks of snow or ice in a corner of a glen they had found well sheltered from the chilly southern blasts, on somewhat raised ground, too, so that even a snow blizzard would be little likely to bury them alive. But the construction of the igloo, and the storage of the food for men and beasts, was now to be left to the charge of our heroes, Charlie, Walter, Wright, and MacDonald; for Ingomar, with Curtis and Slap-dash, were to push on now in the lightest and fastest dog-sledges as near to the actual South Pole as it was prudent to get.
The summer is all too brief at the best, and there was not a single day to lose.