of greater uncertainty. A journey by night to the magnetic huts
was an outing with a spice of adventure.

Climbing out of the veranda, one was immediately swallowed in the chaos
of hurtling drift, the darkness sinister and menacing. The shrill wind
fled by--

...the noise of a drive of the Dead,
Striving before the irresistible will
Through the strange dusk of this, the Debatable land
Between their place and ours.

Unseen wizard hands clutched with insane fury, hacked and harried. It
was "the raw-ribbed Wild that abhors all life, the Wild that would crush
and rend."

Cowering blindly, pushing fiercely through the turmoil, one strove to
keep a course to reach the rocks in which the huts were hidden--such and
such a bearing on the wind--so far. When the rocks came in sight, the
position of the final destination was only deduced by recognising a few
surrounding objects.

On the return journey, the vicinity of the Hut would be heralded by
such accidents as tripping over the "wireless" ground wires or kicking
against a box or a heap of coal briquettes. These clues, properly
followed up, would lead to the Hut itself, or at least to its shelving
roof. In the very thick drifts it was even possible to stand on portions
of the roof without any notion of the fact. Fossicking about, one kept
on the alert for the feel of woodwork. When found and proved to be too
extensive to be a partially buried box, it might safely be concluded to
be some part of the roof, and only required to be skirted in order to
reach the vertical entrance. The lost man often discovered this pitfall
by dropping suddenly through into the veranda.

At the entrance to the tunnel, the roar of the tempest died away into a
rumble, the trap-door opened and perhaps the strains of the gramophone
would come in a kind of flippant defiance from the interior. Passing
through the vestibule and work-room one beheld a scene in utter variance
with the outer hell. Here were warm bunks, rest, food, light and
companionship--for the time being, heaven! Outside, the crude and naked
elements of a primitive and desolate world flowed in writhing torrents.

The night-watchman's duty of taking the meteorological observations
at the screen adjacent to the Hut was a small matter compared with the
foregoing. First of all, it was necessary for him to don a complete
outfit of protective clothing. Dressing and undressing were tedious, and
absorbed a good d