the snow.  He tried to pick it out of the snow, but failed.  The dead fingers could neither touch nor clutch.  He was very careful.  He drove the thought of his freezing feet; and nose, and cheeks, out of his mind, devoting his whole soul to the matches.  He watched, using the sense of vision in place of that of touch, and when he saw his fingers on each side the bunch, he closed them—­that is, he willed to close them, for the wires were drawn, and the fingers did not obey.  He pulled the mitten on the right hand, and beat it fiercely against his knee.  Then, with both mittened hands, he scooped the bunch of matches, along with much snow, into his lap.  Yet he was no better off.

After some manipulation he managed to get the bunch between the heels of his mittened hands.  In this fashion he carried it to his mouth.  The ice crackled and snapped when by a violent effort he opened his mouth.  He drew the lower jaw in, curled the upper lip out of the way, and scraped the bunch with his upper teeth in order to separate a match.  He succeeded in getting one, which he dropped on his lap.  He was no better off.  He could not pick it up.  Then he devised a way.  He picked it up in his teeth and scratched it on his leg.  Twenty times he scratched before he succeeded in lighting it.  As it flamed he held it with his teeth to the birch-bark.  But the burning brimstone went up his nostrils and into his lungs, causing him to cough spasmodically.  The match fell into the snow and went out.

The old-timer on Sulphur Creek was right, he thought in the moment of controlled despair that ensued:  after fifty below, a man should travel with a partner.  He beat his hands, but failed in exciting any sensation.  Suddenly he bared both hands, removing the mittens with his teeth.  He caught the whole bunch between the heels of his hands.  His arm-muscles not being frozen enabled him to press the hand-heels tightly against the matches.  Then he scratched the bunch along his leg.  It flared into flame, seventy sulphur matches at once!  There was no wind to blow them out.  He kept his head to one side to escape the strangling fumes, and held the blazing bunch to the birch-bark.  As he so held it, he became aware of sensation in his hand.  His flesh was burning.  He could smell it.  Deep down below the surface he could feel it.  The sensation developed into pain that grew acute.  And still he endured it, holding the flame of the matches clumsily to the bark that would not light readily because his own burning hands were in the way, absorbing most of the flame.