Tom Linton roused himself from a chilly doze to find that the rain had come at last.  It was a roaring night; his tent was bellied in by the force of the wind, and the raindrops beat upon it with the force of buckshot.  Through the entrance slit, through the open stovepipe hole, the gale poured, bringing dampness with it and rendering the interior as draughty as a corn-crib.  Rolling himself more tightly in his blankets, Linton addressed the darkness through chattering teeth.

“Darned old fool!  This’ll teach him!” He strained his ears for sounds of Jerry, but could hear nothing above the slatting of wet canvas, the tattoo of drops, and the roar of wind in the tree-tops.  After the first violence of the squall had passed he fancied he could hear his former partner stirring, so he arose and peered out into the night.  At first he could see nothing, but in time he dimly made out Jerry struggling with his tarpaulin.  Evidently the fly had blown down, or up, and its owner was restretching it.  Linton grinned.  That would drench the old dodo to the skin and he’d soon be around, begging shelter.

“But I won’t let him in, not if he drowns,” Tom muttered, harshly.  He recalled one of Jerry’s gibes at the saw-pit, a particularly unfeeling, nay, a downright venomous insult which had rankled steadily ever since.  His former friend had seen fit to ridicule honest perspiration and to pretend to mistake it for raindrops.  That remark had been utterly uncalled for and it had betrayed a wanton malice, a malevolent desire to wound; well, here was a chance to even the score.  When Jerry came dripping to the tent door, Tom decided he would poke his head out into the deluge and then cry in evident astonishment:  “Why, Jerry, you’ve been working, haven’t you?  You’re all sweaty!” Mr. Linton giggled out loud.  That would be a refinement of sarcasm; that would be a get-back of the finest.  If Jerry insisted upon coming in out of the wet he’d tell him gruffly to get out of there and try the lake for a change.

But Mr. Quirk made no move in the direction of the tent; instead he built a fire in his stove and crouched over it, endeavoring vainly to shelter himself from the driving rain.  Linton watched him with mingled impatience and resentment.  Would the old fool never get enough?  Jerry was the most unreasonable, the most tantalizing person in the world.

After a time Mr. Linton found that his teeth were chattering and that his frame had been smitten as by an ague; reluctantly he crept back into bed.  He determined to buy, beg, borrow, or steal some more bedding on the morrow—­early on the morrow in order to forestall Jerry.  Jerry would have to find a tent somewhere, and inasmuch as there were none to be had here at Linderman, he would probably have to return to Dyea.  That would delay him seriously—­ enough, perhaps, so that the jaws of winter would close down upon him.  Through the drone of pattering drops there came the faint sound of a cough.