"
"But Linkum wad see't fleein', lang or he wan to the yett (gate)."
"It wad flee nae mair nor a deid deuke i' this weather. It wad be
frozen as stiff's a buird."
"Ye gowk! Do ye think fowk wash their flags afore they hing them oot,
like sarks or sheets? Dinna ye be ower clever, Curly, my man."
Whereupon Curly shut up.
******
"What are you in such a state about, Alec?" asked his mother.
"Nothing very particular, mamma," answered Alec, ashamed of his want of
self-command.
"You've looked out at the window twenty times in the last half-hour,"
she persisted.
"Curly promised to burn a blue light, and I wanted to see if I could
see it."
Suspecting more, his mother was forced to be content with this answer.
But that night was also passed without sight or sound. Juno kept safe
in her barrel, little thinking of the machinations against her in the
wide snow-covered country around. Alec finished the Esquimaux hut, and
the snow falling all night, the hut looked the next morning as if it
had been there all the winter. As it seemed likely that a long spell of
white weather had set in, Alec resolved to extend his original plan,
and carry a long snow passage, or covered vault, from the
lattice-window of a small closet, almost on a level with the ground, to
this retreat by the flag-staff.
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