and drink like a lord and, like the good father and husband that he
firmly believed himself to be, he would send ten dollars to his wife
every month.

With such exalted dreams as these did Foxey Jack Quinn occupy his mind
as he hurried northward along the edge of the snowy barrens. He had
travelled about two miles when he suddenly became aware of the increased
force and coldness of the wind. Snow as dry as desert-sand and as sharp
as splintered ice blew against his face, stinging his eyes (one of which
was still half closed), and smarting the battered flesh of brow and
cheek. Then, for the first time, he realized that one of those dreaded
storms out of the northwest was approaching. But for the treasure in his
pocket he would have faced about and returned to Chance Along; but as it
was he drew his fur cap lower about his ears, wound a woollen scarf
around the lower part of his face and held doggedly on his way. The wind
lulled for a little while, quieting his apprehensions. His rackets were
on his feet now and he pushed along briskly over the pallid snow,
through the whispering dark. He had covered another mile before the
skirmishers of the storm rushed over him again out of the black
northwest. That bitter wind soaked through his heavy garments like water
and chilled him to the heart. Its breath of dry snow, embittered and
intensified by its rushing journey across frozen seas and a thousand
miles of frozen wilderness, blinded him, cut him and snatched at his
lips as if it would pluck life itself from his lungs. He turned his back
to it and crouched low, gasping curses and half-choked prayers to the
saints. Then the full fury of the storm reached him, the dark grew
pallid with flying snow-dust, and the frozen earth seemed to quake
beneath his hands and knees. For a minute he lay flat, fighting for
breath with his arms encircling his face. He knew that he must find
shelter of some description immediately or else die terribly of