Having accomplished this much, he cut thin strips of meat from the caribou carcass. These he placed upon the snow. When they had frozen he ate them with relish.
“M-m!” he murmured. “Most as good as cooked and a whole lot better than dried fish.”
Having eaten, he gathered his garments close in about him and sat down upon the ground.
Presently he rose suddenly and, having drawn several small articles from pockets in his belt, proceeded to wind a coil antenna. This when completed he hung to the top of his Alpine staff which he had stuck upright in the snow. Then, having thrust a pair of receivers over his head, he sat down again.
In the belt there was arranged a complete radiophone receiving set with a range of two hundred miles.
“Might hear something more interesting than the storm,” he told himself. “B’r’r’r! It’s sure going to be bad.”
CHAPTER XIII
SAVED BY A WHISPER
Back in the camp Jennings was working on an Eskimo type of harness for Ginger, Joe Marion’s leader. The white man’s collar, which was very much like a leather horse collar, had worn a sore spot on his neck. A harness made of strips of sealskin and fashioned in a manner somewhat similar to a breast collar, would relieve this.
Joe Marion had gone a short way from camp in the hope of finding a snowshoe rabbit or a ptarmigan. His search had been rewarded. In crossing a low hill he had caught the whir of wings and had, a moment later, sighted three snow-white ptarmigan. These quails of the Arctic wilderness went racing away across the snow. His aim was good and, with all three of these in his bag, he was sure of some delicious broth and tender, juicy meat that night.
He was searching about for other birds when a sudden gust of wind sent cutting bits of snow into his face.