She came from behind the stove, and we let her go to the door alone.  Nobody ever seemed to do any favours for Annie Black.

“She’ll be seein’ things next,” says Joe, winking.  “What’d I tell you?  For God’s sake close it—­you’ll freeze us.”

Annie opened the door, and was hid to the waist in a cloud of steam that rolled in out of the blackness.  She peered out for a minute, stooped, and tugged at something in the dark.  I was at her side in a jump, and we dragged him in, snow-covered and senseless.

“Quick—­brandy,” says she, slashing at his stiff “mukluks.”  “Joe, bring in a tub of snow.”  Her voice was steel sharp.

“Well, I’m danged,” says the mail man.  “It’s only an Injun.  You needn’t go crazy like he was a white.”

“Oh, you fool” says Annie.  “Can’t you see?  Esquimaux don’t travel alone.  There’s white men behind, and God help them if we don’t bring him to.”

She knew more about rescustications than us, and we did what she said, till at last he came out of it, groaning—­just plumb wore out and numb.

“Talk to him, Joe; you savvy their noise,” says I.

The poor devil showed his excitement, dead as he was.

“There’s two men on the big ‘Cut-off,’” Joe translates.  “Lost on the portage.  There was only one robe between ’em, so they rolled up in it, and the boy came on in the dark.  Says they can’t last till morning.”

“That lets them out,” says the mail carrier.  “Too bad we can’t reach them to-night.”

“What!” snaps Annie.  “Reach ’em?  Huh!  I said you were a jellyfish.  Hurry up and get your things on, boys.”

“Have a little sense,” says Joe.  “You surely ain’t a darn fool.  Out in this storm, dark as the inside of a cow; blowin’ forty mile, and the ‘quick’ froze.  Can’t be done.  I wonder who they are?”

He “kowtowed” some more, and at the answer of the chattering savage we looked at Annie.

“Him called Lund,” shivered the Siwash.

I never see anybody harder hit than her.  I love a scrap, but I thinks “Billy, she’s having a stiffer fight than you ever associated with.”

Finally she says, kind of slow and quiet:  “Who knows where the ‘Cut-off’ starts?”

Nobody answers, and up speaks the U. S. man again.

“You’ve got your nerve, to ask a man out on such a night.”

“If there was one here, I wouldn’t have to ask him.  There’s people freezing within five miles of here, and you hug the stove, saying:  ‘It’s stormy, and we’ll get cold.’  Of course it is.  If it wasn’t stormy they’d be here too, and it’s so cold, you’ll probably freeze.  What’s that got to do with it?  Ever have your mother talk to you about duty?  Thank Heaven I travelled that portage once, and I can find it again if somebody will go with me.”

’Twas a blush raising talk, but nobody upset any furniture getting dressed.