ttle boy, bundled nearly out of sight, hanging by
his coat-tails. There was a raging blast beating in his face, and the
thermometer stood below zero; the snow was never short of his knees, and
in some of the drifts it was nearly up to his armpits. It would catch
his feet and try to trip him; it would build itself into a wall before
him to beat him back; and he would fling himself into it, plunging like
a wounded buffalo, puffing and snorting in rage. So foot by foot he
drove his way, and when at last he came to Durham's he was staggering
and almost blind, and leaned against a pillar, gasping, and thanking God
that the cattle came late to the killing beds that day. In the evening
the same thing had to be done again; and because Jurgis could not tell
what hour of the night he would get off, he got a saloon-keeper to let
Ona sit and wait for him in a corner. Once it was eleven o'clock at
night, and black as the pit, but still they got home.

That blizzard knocked many a man out, for the crowd outside begging for
work was never greater, and the packers would not wait long for any
one. When it was over, the soul of Jurgis was a song, for he had met
the enemy and conquered, and felt himself the master of his fate.--So it
might be with some monarch of the forest that has vanquished his foes in
fair fight, and then falls into some cowardly trap in the night-time.

A time of peril on the killing beds was when a steer broke loose.
Sometimes, in the haste of speeding-up, they would dump one of the
animals out on the floor before it was fully stunned, and it would get
upon its feet and run amuck. Then there would be a yell of warning--the
men would drop everything and dash for the nearest pillar, slipping
here and there on the floor, and tumbling over each other. This was bad
enough in the summer, when a man could see; in wintertime it was enough
to make your hair stand up, for the room would be so full of steam that
you could not make anything out five feet in front of you. To be sure,
the steer was generally blind and frantic, and not especially bent on
hurting any one; but think of the chances of running upon a knife, while
nearly every man had one in his hand! And then, to cap the climax, the
floor boss would come rushing up with a rifle and begin blazing away!

It was in one of these melees that Jurgis fell into his trap. That is
the only word to describe it; it was so cruel, and so utterly not to
be foreseen. At first he har