uinn figured it out. On reaching St.
John's he would go to a shebeen that he knew, in a narrow and secluded
back street, and there rent a room. Then he would commence the business
of disposing of one of the diamonds. Just how he was to go about this he
did not know, but he felt sure that Mother McKay, who kept the shebeen,
would be able to give him some valuable advice on the subject. And after
that? Well, the prospects were rosy but vague. He would get word to his
wife in some way to move herself and the children to Witless Bay. He
would send her twenty dollars, and after that, for the rest of his life,
ten good dollars every month. As for himself, he would sail away to some
big city "up-along"--to Boston, New York or London--dispose of the
necklace stone by stone, buy a great house and live in idle luxury. He
would dress like a merchant, eat hearty every day, drink deep and sleep
warm. He had heard of such things--of men who never set their hands to a
stroke of work from year's end to year's end. He would live like a king
and drink like a lord and, like the good father and husband that he
firmly believed himself to be, he would send ten dollars to his wife
every month.

With such exalted dreams as these did Foxey Jack Quinn occupy his mind
as he hurried northward along the edge of the snowy barrens. He had
travelled about two miles when he suddenly became aware of the increased
force and coldness of the wind. Snow as dry as desert-sand and as sharp
as splintered ice blew against his face, stinging his eyes (one of which
was still half closed), and smarting the battered flesh of brow and
cheek. Then, for the first time, he realized that one of those dreaded
storms out of the northwest was approaching. But for the treasure in his
pocket he would have faced about and returned to Chance Along; but as it
was he drew his fur cap lower about his ears, wound a woollen scarf
around the lower part of his face and held doggedly on his way. The wind
lulled for a little while, quieting his apprehensions. His rackets were
on his feet now and he pushed along briskly over the pallid snow,
through the whispering dark. He had covered another mile before the
skirmishers of the storm rushed over him again out of the black
northwest. That bitter wind soaked through his heavy garments like water
and chilled him to the heart. Its breath of dry snow, embittered and
intensified by its rushing journey across frozen seas and a thousand
miles of