Any unusually severe exertion precipitated spells of
coughing, during which he was almost like a man in a fit. The
blood congested in his eyes till they bulged, while the tears ran
down his cheeks. A whiff of the smoke from frying bacon would
start him off for a half-hour's paroxysm, and he kept carefully
to windward when Daylight was cooking.
They plodded days upon days and without end over the soft,
unpacked snow. It was hard, monotonous work, with none of the
joy and blood-stir that went with flying over hard surface. Now
one man to the fore in the snowshoes, and now the other, it was a
case of stubborn, unmitigated plod. A yard of powdery snow had
to be pressed down, and the wide-webbed shoe, under a man's
weight, sank a full dozen inches into the soft surface. Snowshoe
work, under such conditions, called for the use of muscles other
than those used in ordinary walking. From step to step the
rising foot could not come up and forward on a slant. It had to
be raised perpendicularly. When the snowshoe was pressed into
the snow, its nose was confronted by a vertical wall of snow
twelve inches high. If the foot, in rising, slanted forward the
slightest bit, the nose of the shoe penetrated the obstructing
wall and tipped downward till the heel of the shoe struck the
man's leg behind.
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