Triple Spies by Roy J. Snell
page 97 of 169 (57%)
page 97 of 169 (57%)
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this she found a two-inch layer of blubber, which must be more than
ninety per cent oil. Under this was a compact mass of dark meat. This would be good if it was cooked. She sat down to think again. The fat seemed to offer a solution. It would burn if she had matches. She felt over the parka for pockets, and, with a little cry of joy, she found in one several matches wrapped in a bit of oiled seal skin. Every native carried them. Hastily she stripped off a bit of fat and having lighted it, watched it flare up and burn rapidly. She laughed and clapped her hands. But before she could cut off a bit of meat to roast over its flames, the soft ice began melting beneath it and the flames flickered out with a snapping flutter. This would not do. There must be some other way found. Rising, she drove her harpoon into the snow at the crest of an ice pile. To this she fastened her deer skin, that it might act as a beacon to guide her back to her food supply. Then she turned about the ice pile and began wandering in search of she hardly knew what. She at last came upon some old ice, with cakes ground round and discolored with age and then with a little cry of joy she started forward. The thing she saw had been discarded as worthless long ago; some gasoline schooner's crew had thrown it overboard. It was an empty five-gallon can which had once held gasoline. It was red with rust, but she pounced upon it and hurried away. Once safely back at her lodge she used the harpoon to cut out a door in the upper end of the can. After cutting several holes in one side, she |
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