Then he took his sleeping bag from the load, and, digging deeper down
and down into the drift, stretched the bag into the hole he had made,
and slid into it, and in a little while the snow covered him, and he
like the dogs lay buried beneath the drift.
CHAPTER XXV
A LONELY JOURNEY
Weary as Jimmy was, he lay awake for a long time, torn by emotions and
filled with misgivings and wild imaginings. Would he ever see good old
Partner again? Would he ever see the cozy cabin that had been his home
through all these happy years? Would he ever again sit, snug in his big
arm chair before the big box stove with its roaring fire, while Skipper
Ed helped him with his studies or told him stories of the far-off fairy
land of civilization?
Then for a time he fell to thinking about Bobby, and, in his old way, to
worrying, and to wondering if, after all, he could not or should not
make one more attempt to rescue his comrade.
"I never should have let him go that last time," he moaned. "If he
perishes it will be my fault! I'm older and I should have thought
further! I should have kept him back! But I'm so in the habit of letting
him go ahead! Oh, I should have held him back! I should have held him
back!"
And in this soliloquy Jimmy unconsciously admitted, though he did not
know it, that Bobby was his leader still, as he always had been, and
that Bobby's will and judgment dominated. Bobby had decided to go upon
that last attempt to find snow suitable for an _igloo_, and Bobby went,
and Jimmy could no more successfully have interposed his judgment
against Bobby's than he could have stopped the blowing of the wind.
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