crawl through. As the cabin was abandoned
there would be no possible disadvantage to such an opening: and since
the fire had to be built outside the cabin, against the backlogs, the
door would have to be left open anyway, to admit the heat. With a few
strokes of his sharp little camp ax he cut away the planks, leaving a
black hole in the door. He lighted a match and peered in.

The interior was unchanged since his previous visit, years before. The
cabin had no floor, not the least vestige of furniture, and rodents had
littered the ground with leaves.

He turned to his toil of making a fire. First he cut down a spruce--a
heart-breaking task with his little ax--then laboriously hacked it
into lengths. These he bore to the cabin, staggering with the load. He
split the logs, cutting some of them into firewood for kindling. Then
he made a pile of shavings.

He tested the wind and found it blowing straight west and away from the
cabin. He felt oddly tired and dull, much too tired to strain and
listen for some whispered message of an inner voice that seemed to be
trying hard to get his attention, a few little, vague misgivings that
haunted him. His comfort depended, he told himself, on the heat of the
fire beating in through the little opening of the cabin door, so he
placed the backlog just as close as he dared in front. Then he laid
down split pieces for frame of his fire and erected his heap of
kindling.

He entered through the opening and stood on the ground below to light
the fire. He didn't desire to crawl through the flames to enter the
cabin. Reaching as far as he could, he was just able to insert the
candle. The wind caught it, the kindling flames. Then he stood
shivering, waiting for the room to warm.

He had a sweeping flood of thoughts as he watched the leaping flame.
Its cheerful crackle, its bright color in the gloom was almost too good
to be true. In these dark forests he had learned to be wary and on
guard at too great fortune. Quite often it was only a prank of perverse
forest gods, before they smote him with some black disaster. It seemed
to him that there was a wild laughter, a Satanic mocking in the joyous
crackle that was vaguely but fearfully ominous. The promise in the
rainbow, the siren's song to the mariners, the little dancing light in
the marsh--promising warmth and safety but only luring the weary
traveler to this death--had this same quality: the cheer, the hope,
the beauty