for personal appearance, and for that matter,
common decency. The cabin became a pigpen, and never once were the beds
made or fresh pine boughs laid underneath. Yet they could not keep to
their blankets, as they would have wished; for the frost was
inexorable, and the fire box consumed much fuel. The hair of their
heads and faces grew long and shaggy, while their garments would have
disgusted a ragpicker. But they did not care. They were sick, and there
was no one to see; besides, it was very painful to move about.

To all this was added a new trouble--the Fear of the North. This Fear
was the joint child of the Great Cold and the Great Silence, and was
born in the darkness of December, when the sun dipped below the horizon
for good. It affected them according to their natures.

Weatherbee fell prey to the grosser superstitions, and did his best to
resurrect the spirits which slept in the forgotten graves. It was a
fascinating thing, and in his dreams they came to him from out of the
cold, and snuggled into his blankets, and told him of their toils and
troubles ere they died. He shrank away from the clammy contact as they
drew closer and twined their frozen limbs about him, and when they
whispered in his ear of things to come, the cabin rang with his
frightened shrieks. Cuthfert did not understand--for they no longer
spoke--and when thus awakened he invariably grabbed for his revolver.
Then he would sit up in bed, shivering nervously, with the weapon
trained on the unconscious dreamer. Cuthfert deemed the man going mad,
and so came to fear for his life.

His own malady assumed a less concrete form. The mysterious artisan who
had laid the cabin, log by log, had pegged a wind-vane to the
ridgepole. Cuthfert noticed it always pointed south, and one day,
irritated by its steadfastness of purpose, he turned it toward the
east. He watched eagerly, but never a breath came by to disturb it.
Then he turned the vane to the north, swearing never again to touch it
till the wind did blow. But the air frightened him with its unearthly
calm, and he often rose in the middle of the night to see if the vane
had veered--ten degrees would have satisfied him. But no, it poised
above him as unchangeable as fate.

His imagination ran riot, till it became to him a fetish. Sometimes he
followed the path it pointed across the dismal dominions, and allowed
his soul to become saturated with the Fear. He dwelt upon the unseen
and the unknown ti