and shadowed deeply. He let slip the load of fresh pelts from his
back, drew his feet from the skis which he stuck up on their ends
in the snow, and removed the fur cap from his head and the huge dark
spectacles from his eyes. Then, crouching, he went in at the low,
ill-hung door. It stuck to its sill, and he cursed it; all his
movements expressed the anger of frustration. He slammed the door
behind him.

Buried in drifts, the cabin was dim even at this bright hour of noon.
The stove glowed in a corner with a subdued redness, its bulging
cheeks and round mouth dully scarlet. The low room was pleasant to
look at, for it had the beauty of brown bark and the salmon tints
of old rough boards, and its furniture, wrought painstakingly by an
unskillful hand, had the charm of all handwork even when unskilled.
Some of the chairs were rudely carved, one great throne especially,
awkward, pretentious, and carefully ornate.

There was, too, a solid table in the center of the floor; and on it
a woman was setting heavy earthenware plates nicked and discolored.
She was heavy and discolored herself, but like the stove, she too
seemed to have a dull glow. She was no longer young, but she might
still have encouraged her youthfulness to linger pleasantly; she was
not in the least degree beautiful, but she might have fostered a charm
that lurked somewhere about her small, compact body and in her square,
dark face. Her hair of a sandy brown was stretched back brutally so
that her bright, devoted eyes--gray and honest eyes, very deep-set
beneath their brows--lacked the usual softness and mystery of women's
eyes. Her lips were tight set; her chin held out with an air of dogged
effort which seemed to possess no relation to her mechanical
occupation, yet to have a strong habitual relation to her state of