WINTER CAMP 43

At six o’clock next morning we were preparing
breakfast by candlelight. Coffee bubbled on the
stove; hot-cakes spread and rose and were turned in
the frying-pan; the air inside the tent was stifling,
though it was only half an hour since our frozen
breath had clung in a white layer over the tops of
our eiderdowns. It was I, as it happened, who
dashed out after breakfast to throw something at a
howling dog and was brought suddenly to a
standstill. I saw in the distance a group of black
pines against a pale golden cloud, and a stretch of
banded rose and grey over a cold white mountain-
peak. Overhead the night had not yet gone, and
behind me among the sheltering spruce the tent sat
like a glow-worm in the shadow.

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