It was a lamp that, depending from the
ceiling, gave to the room an illumination as brilliant as daylight.
"Electric, as I live!" gasped the young engineer. "A regular
incandescent, and those lights out on the trail must have been the
same. That was an electric bell too. I know it now, though I couldn't
believe my ears at the time. The light he scared the Indians with must
have been an electric flash, worked by a storage battery. But it is
all so incredible! I wonder if I am really awake or still dreaming?"
To assure himself on this point Cabot went to the light, and, as he did
so, came upon another surprise greater than any that had preceded it.
He had wondered at the comfortable temperature of the room, for there
was nowhere a fire to be seen, and the blizzard still howled outside
with unabated fury. Now, on drawing near to the lamp, he found himself
also approaching some heretofore unobserved source of heat, which he
discovered to be a drum of sheet iron. It stood by itself, unconnected
with any chimney, and apparently had no receptacle for any form of
fuel, solid, liquid, or gaseous.
"A Balfour electric heater," murmured Cabot, in an awe-stricken tone,
"and I didn't even know they had been perfected. I don't suppose there
are half-a-dozen in use in all the world, and yet here is one of them
doing its full duty up here in the Labrador wilderness, a thousand
miles from anywhere.
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