hunters sought to free themselves from their snowy prison, and succeeded
in burrowing, so to speak, upwards after severe labour, for the hut was
buried in drift which the violence of the gale had rendered extremely
compact.

O'Riley was the first to emerge into the upper world. Having dusted the
snow from his garments, and shaken himself like a Newfoundland dog, he
made sundry wry faces, and gazed round him with the look of a man that
did not know very well what to do with himself.

"It's a quare place, it is, intirely," he remarked, with a shake of the
head that betokened intense sagacity, while he seated himself on a mound
of snow and watched his comrades as they busied themselves in dragging
their sleeping-bags and cooking utensils from the cavern they had just
quitted. O'Riley seemed to be in a contemplative mood, for he did not
venture any further remark, although he looked unutterable things as he
proceeded quietly to fill his little black pipe.

"Ho! O'Riley, lend a hand, you lazy fellow," cried Fred; "work first and
play afterwards, you skulker."

"Sure that same is what I'm doin'," replied O'Riley with a bland smile,
which he eclipsed in a cloud of smoke. "Haven't I bin workin' like a
naagur for two hours to git out of that hole, and ain't I playin' a tune
on me pipe now? But I won't be cross-grained. I'll lind ye a hand av ye
behave yerself. It's a bad thing to be cross-grained," he continued,
pocketing his pipe and assisting to arrange the sledge; "me owld
grandmother always towld me that, and she wos wise, she wos, beyand
ordn'r. More like Salomon nor anything else."