Then he skinned them and
stitched their hides together with thin strips of leather, and thus
made himself a coat, with the fur inside.
All the clothes he had had on till then were some old football things
he had come across that morning in his house. A pair of football
shorts and stockings of the Richmond Football Club (red, yellow, and
black), and a flannel shirt and sweater, so he was practically in Boy
Scout's kit rather than what you would expect a missionary-doctor to
be wearing.
But then, you see, he was quite as much a Scout as he was a doctor or
missionary; and we understand from this story how, like a Scout, he
was able to turn his hand to anything and invent for himself the
different means for saving his life although he was all alone with his
dogs on a small lump of rotten ice floating past the coast of
Labrador.
There was one little point in which, perhaps, a Boy Scout could have
helped him had he been there. As darkness came on, he thought he would
light up a flare, which would catch the attention of anyone on shore,
so he frayed out a piece of rope and smeared it with the fat of the
dead dogs, and was about to light it when he found that his matches
had got wet, and in that damp air he could not get them dry.
Pages:
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46