A startled gasp broke from his lips, and the handcuffs about his wrists clanked as he raised his hands to his face.  In that moment his dazed senses adjusted themselves.  The cabin was full of smoke.  It partly blinded him, but through it he could see tongues of fire shooting toward the ceiling.  He could hear the crackling of burning pitch, and he yelled wildly to Brokaw.  In an instant the sergeant was on his feet.  He rushed to the table, where he had placed a pail of water the evening before, and Billy heard the hissing of the water as it struck the flaming wall.

“Never mind that,” he shouted.  “The shack’s built of pitch cedar.  We’ve got to get out!” Brokaw groped his way to him through the smoke and began fumbling at the chain about his ankles.

“I can’t—­find—­the key—­” he gasped chokingly.  “Here grab hold of me!”

He caught Billy under the arms and dragged him to the door.  As he opened it the wind came in with a rush and behind them the whole cabin burst into a furnace of flame.  Twenty yards from the cabin he dropped Billy in the snow, and ran back.  In that seething room of smoke and fire was everything on which their lives depended, food, blankets, even their coats and caps and snowshoes.  But he could go no farther than the door.  He returned to Billy, found the key in his pocket, and freed him from the chain about his ankles.  Billy stood up.  As he looked at Brokaw the glass in the window broke and a sea of flame sprouted through.  It lighted up their faces.  The sergeant’s jaw was set hard.  His leathery face was curiously white.  He could not keep from shivering.  There was a strange smile on Billy’s face, and a strange look in his eyes.  Neither of the two men had undressed for sleep, but their coats, and caps, and heavy mittens were in the flames.

Billy rattled his handcuffs.  Brokaw looked him squarely in the eyes.

“You ought to know this country,” he said.  “What’ll we do?”

“The nearest post is sixty miles from here,” said Billy.

“I know that,” replied Brokaw.  “And I know that Thoreau’s cabin is only twenty miles from here.  There must be some trapper or Indian shack nearer than that.  Is there?” In the red glare of the fire Billy smiled.  His teeth gleamed at Brokaw.  It was a lull of the wind, and he went close to Brokaw, and spoke quietly, his eyes shining more and more with that strange light that had come into them.

“This is going to be a big sight easier than hanging, or going to jail for half my life, Brokaw—­an’ you don’t think I’m going to be fool enough to miss the chance, do you?  It ain’t hard to die of cold.  I’ve almost been there once or twice.  I told you last night why I couldn’t give up hope—­that something good for me always came on her birthday, or near to it.  An’ it’s come.  It’s forty below, an’ we won’t live the day out.  We ain’t got a mouthful of grub.  We ain’t got clothes enough on to keep us from freezing inside the shanty, unless we had a fire.  Last night I saw you fill your match bottle and put it in your coat pocket.  Why, man, we ain’t even got A match!”