s of the night, or what it was, but after I had finished my
work and sat down in the office to rest I fell into the utmost terror.
The awful lonesomeness pressed down upon me like a weight. I started
at the least sound; dangers I had never thought of before, such as
sickness and the like, popped into my mind clear as day, and, in
short, I was half dead from sheer fright. There was not a breath of
wind outside, or a sound, except once in a while a sharp crack of some
building as the frost warped a clapboard or sprung out a nail; and at
each crack I started as if I had been struck. The moon was shining
brightly, but it was much colder; the thermometer already marked
twenty degrees below zero.

Suddenly there came, clear and sharp, the savage howling of a pack of
wolves; it seemed at the very door. I jumped out of my chair, I was so
startled, and stood, I think, a most disgraceful picture of a coward.
Kaiser rose up on his three sound legs and began to growl. At last I
got courage to go to the window and peep out, with my teeth fairly
chattering. I could see them up the street, all in a bunch, and
offering a fine shot; but I was too frightened to shoot. After a while
they went off, and it was still again. I wondered which was worse,
their savage wailing or the awful stillness which made the ticking of
the clock seem like the blows of a hammer. I wished that there might
come another blizzard.

But at last I got so I could walk the floor; and as I went back and
forth I managed to look at things a little more calmly. The first
thing I decided on was that I must no longer, in good weather at
least, sleep in the hotel. It was easy to see, if the robbers came in
the night and found nobody in the other houses, that they would come
straight to the hotel. I made up my mind to take my bed to some empty
house where they would be little likely to look for any one, or where
they would not be apt to look until after I had had warning of their
coming.

Another thing which I decided on was that I must keep up two or three
more fires, and get up early every morning to start them. I saw, too,
that I ought to distribute the Winchesters more, and board up the
windows of the bank, and perhaps some of the other buildings, leaving
loopholes out of which to shoot. Still another point which I thought
of was this: Suppose the whole town should be burned? I wondered if I
could not find or make some place where I would be safe and would not
have