t a
fire. Move; and don't try any monkey business!"

He closed the door as the men went out. He had no fear that they would
try to escape--even a threat of death could not have forced them to
leave the cabin.

When they came in they kindled a fire in the big fireplace, hovering
close to it after the blaze sprang up, enjoying its warmth, for the
interior of the cabin had become frigid.

Lawler, however, did not permit the men to enjoy the fire. He sent them
out for more wood, and when they had piled a goodly supply in a corner,
and had filled a tin water pail from a water hole situated about a
hundred feet straight out from the door of the cabin, he sent them again
to the dugout after their ropes. With the ropes, despite the sullen
objections of the men, he bound their hands and feet tightly, afterward
picking the men up and tossing them ungently into upper bunks on
opposite sides of the room.

He stood, after watching them for a time, his face expressionless.

"That's just so you won't get to thinking you are company," he said.
"We're holed up for a long time, maybe, and I don't want you to bother
me, a heap. If you get to bothering me--disturbing my sleep trying to
untangle yourselves from those ropes, why----"

He significantly tapped his pistol. Then he pulled a chair close to the
fire, dropped into it, rolled a cigarette, and calmly smoked, watching
the white fleece trail up the chimney.

CHAPTER XVIII

STORM-DRIVEN

For an hour there was no sound in the cabin. Lawler smoked several
cigarettes. Once he got up and threw more wood upon the fire, standing
in front of the blaze for several minutes stretching his long legs,
watching the licking tongues as they were sucked up the chimney by the
shrieking wind.

Then, for a time, he lounged in the chair, gazing meditatively at the
north window, noting how the fine, frozen snow meal clung to the glass;
watching the light fade, listening to the howling white terror that had
seized the world in its icy grip.

At the end of an hour it grew dark in the cabin. Lawler got up, lighted
the kerosene lamp, placed it on the table, seated himself on a bench and
again meditatively watched the leaping flames in the fireplace.

Satisfaction glowed in his eyes as he thought of what would have
happened had he not decided to substitute for Davies and Harris.
Undoubtedly by this time the two men were on their way to the camp. They
would certainly have noticed the warni