He put a hand to his bare head and faced the direction of the storm.  With the dying away of the wind snow had begun to fall, and with this snow he knew there would come a rising temperature.  It was probably twenty degrees below zero, and unless the wind went down completely his ears would freeze in an hour or two.  Then he thought of the thick German socks he wore.  One of them would do for a cap.  His mind worked swiftly after that.  There was, after all, a tremendous thrill in the thought of fighting the odds against him, and in the thought of the girl waiting for him in the bearskin, her life depending upon him utterly now.  Without him she could not move from the tree where he had left her unless her naked feet buried themselves in the snow.  If something happened to him—­she would die.  Her helplessness filled him suddenly with a wild exultation, the joy of absolute possession that leapt for an instant or two above his fears.  She was something more—­now—­than the woman he loved.  She was a little child, to be carried in his arms, to be sheltered from the wind and the cold until the last drop of blood had ceased to flow in his veins.  His was the mighty privilege now to mother her until the end came for them both—­or some miracle saved them.  The last barrier was gone from between them.  That he had met her only yesterday was an unimportant incident now.  The world had changed, life had changed, a long time had passed.  She belonged to him as utterly as the stars belonged to the skies.  In his arms she would find life—­or death.

He was braced for the fight.  His mind, riding over its first fears, began to shape itself for action even as he turned back toward the edge of the forest.  Until then he had not thought of the other cabin—­the cabin which Bram and he had passed on their way in from the Barren.  His heart rose up suddenly in his throat and he wanted to shout.  That cabin was their salvation!  It was not more than eight or ten miles away, and he was positive that he could find it.

He ran swiftly through the increasing circle of light made by the burning logs.  If the Eskimos had not gone far some one of them would surely see the red glow of the fire, and discovery now meant death.  In the edge of the trees, where the shadows were deep, he paused and looked back.  His hand fumbled where the left-pocket of his coat would have been, and as he listened to the crackling of the flames and stared into the heart of the red glow there smote him with sudden and sickening force a realization of their deadliest peril.  In that twisting inferno of burning pitch was his coat, and in the left-hand pocket of that coat were his matches!