awn together with the chill that
struck through even his heavy sweater and coat, he went on, following
the tracks he had made coming down. They were almost obliterated with
the snow, that went slithering over the drifts like a creeping cloud,
except when a heavier gust lifted it high in air and flung it out in a
blinding swirl. Battling with that wind sent the warmth through his
body again, but his hands and feet were numb when he skirted the
highest, deepest, solidest drift of them all and crept into the
desolate fissure that was the opening to his lair.

Inside it was more dismal than out on the peak, if that could be. The
wind whistled through the openings in the roof, the snow swirled down
and lay uneasily where it fell. His camp-fire was cheerless, sifted
over with white. His bed under the ledge looked cold and comfortless,
with the raw, frozen hide of the bear on top, a dingy blank fringe of
fur showing at the edges.

Jack stood just inside, his shoulders again hunched forward, his
chilled fingers doubled together in his pockets, and looked around
him. He always did that when he came back, and he always felt nearly
the same heartsick shrinking away from its cold dreariness. The sun
never shone in there, for one thing. The nearest it ever came was to
gild the north rim of the opening during the middle of the day.

Today its chill desolation struck deeper than ever, but he went
stolidly forward and started a little fire with a splinter or two of
pitch that he had carried up from a log down below. Hank had taught
him the value of pitch pine, and Jack remembered it now with a wry
twist of the lips. He supposed he ought to be grateful to Hank for
that much, but he was not.

He melted snow in a smoky tin bucket and made a little coffee in
another bucket quite as black. All his food was frozen, of course, but
he stirred up a little batter with self-rising buckwheat flour and
what was left of the snow water, whittled off a few slices of bacon,
fried that and afterwards cooked the batter in the grease, watching
lest the thick cake burn before it had cooked in the center. He laid
the slices of bacon upon half of the cake, folded the other half over
upon them, squatted on his heels beside the fire and ate the ungainly
sandwich and drank the hot black coffee sweetened and with a few of
the coarser grains floating on top. While he ate he stared unseeingly
into the fire, that sputtered and hissed when an extra sifting of sn