His next thought was of a fire. He had no desire to eat more raw meat, besides he was not unmindful of the cheering influence of even a tiny blaze. The ground was everywhere over-run with creeping willows. These he clipped off with his hunting knife and tied in bundles. Some were dry and dead. These he kept in a separate bundle. When he had an armload, he carried them to a spot near the door of the house.
He had no matches, but this did not trouble him. Cutting off a foot of a pole used with the net, he split it in two pieces. One of these halves he split again and from these smaller pieces he formed the bow and drill of an Eskimo bow-drill. With a tough creeping willow runner for a string to his bow, with dry moss for tinder, he soon had, first a smoke, then a blaze. Not long after this, he was turning a carefully picked and cleaned fowl over a cheerful flame.
Having broiled this to a turn, he shared it with the dog, then lay down to sleep. Before the sweet oblivion of sleep quieted his aching muscles, the old haunting questions came back to him, "What land? What people?" There were but two questions now; the third had been temporarily solved; they still had a bird for breakfast, and that there were others to be caught he did not doubt.
CHAPTER XVII
OUT OF THE NIGHT
After Marian and Lucile had heard the crash against the door of the boarded-up house, and had stilled their wildly beating hearts, they dragged themselves halfway out of their sleeping-bags and sat up.
"What was it?" Marian repeated. Her teeth were chattering so she could hardly whisper.
"It saw the light from the seal-oil lamp," Lucile whispered. A cold chill ran up her back. "Sh! Listen!"
It was a tense moment. A dead silence hovered over the room. Had they heard a sound as of low moaning or whining, or was it the wind?
"Marian," whispered Lucile, "what sort of a sound does a polar bear make?"