his
teeth to the birch-bark. But the burning brimstone went up his nostrils
and into his lungs, causing him to cough spasmodically. The match fell
into the snow and went out.

The old-timer on Sulphur Creek was right, he thought in the moment of
controlled despair that ensued: after fifty below, a man should travel
with a partner. He beat his hands, but failed in exciting any sensation.
Suddenly he bared both hands, removing the mittens with his teeth. He
caught the whole bunch between the heels of his hands. His arm-muscles
not being frozen enabled him to press the hand-heels tightly against the
matches. Then he scratched the bunch along his leg. It flared into
flame, seventy sulphur matches at once! There was no wind to blow them
out. He kept his head to one side to escape the strangling fumes, and
held the blazing bunch to the birch-bark. As he so held it, he became
aware of sensation in his hand. His flesh was burning. He could smell
it. Deep down below the surface he could feel it. The sensation
developed into pain that grew acute. And still he endured it, holding
the flame of the matches clumsily to the bark that would not light
readily because his own burning hands were in the way, absorbing most of
the flame.

At last, when he could endure no more, he jerked his hands apart. The
blazing matches fell sizzling into the snow, but the birch-bark was
alight. He began laying dry grasses and the tiniest twigs on the flame.
He could not pick and choose, for he had to lift the fuel between the
heels of his hands. Small pieces of rotten wood and green moss clung to
the twigs, and he bit them off as well as he could with his teeth. He
cherished the flame carefully and awkwardly. It meant life, and it must
not perish. The withdrawal of blood from the surface of his body now
made him begin to shiver, and he grew more awkward. A large piece of
green moss fell squarely on the little fire. He tried to poke it out
with his fingers, but his shivering frame made him poke too far, and he
disrupted the nucleus of the little fire, the burning grasses and tiny
twigs separating and scattering. He tried to poke them together again,
but in spite of the tenseness of the effort, his shivering got away with
him, and the twigs were hopelessly scattered. Each twig gushed a puff of
smoke and went out. The fire-provider had failed. As he looked
apathetically about him, his eyes chanced on the dog, sitting across the