Not quite. Jaspar Hume
looked round. There was not a tree in sight. He stooped and cut away a
pole that was used for strengthening the runners of the sleds, fastened
it firmly in the ground, and tied to it a red woollen scarf, used for
tightening his white blankets round him. Then he said: "Be sure and keep
that flying."
Jeff's face was turned towards the north. The blindman's instinct was
coming to him. Far off white eddying drifts were rising over long
hillocks of snow. When he turned round again his face was troubled. It
grew more troubled, then it brightened up again, and he said to Hume:
"Captain, would you leave that book with me till you come back--that
about infirmities, dangers, and necessities? I knew a river-boss who used
to carry an old spelling-book round with him for luck. It seems to me as
if that book of yours, Captain, would bring luck to this part of the
White Guard, that bein' out at heels like has to stay behind."
Hume had borne the sufferings of his life with courage; he had led this
terrible tramp with no tremor at his heart for himself; he was seeking to
perform a perilous act without any inward shrinking; but Jeff's request
was the greatest trial of this critical period in his life.
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