The first part of his journey home to the cabin was one of profanity; the second of prayer; the third of grim silence. In the first he lost his rifle; in the second his courage; in the third his knowledge of what was about him. Like a crippled rabbit he dragged himself over the snow, a single black spot against the whiteness. The dark forest-trees gathered curiously about his wavering consciousness to look down on him in aloof compassion. And over him, invisible, palpable, hovered the dreadful north-country cold, waiting to stoop. Regis Brugiere, by the grace of a woodsman's perseverance and the instinct of a wild creature, gained at last the clearing in which his cabin stood. Behind him wavered a long, deep-gouged furrow-trail, pitiful attest of suffering. His strength was water, but he was home. After a long time he reached the door, and rested. The incident was cruel, but it was only one of many in a cruel way of life. The twilight was coming down with thronging mysterious voices. Among them clamoured fiercely the voice of the cold. Regis Brugiere felt its breath on his heart, and, in alarm, broke through the apathy of his condition. It was time to recall his forces, to enter where could be found provisions and warmth. Painfully he turned on his right side and prepared to reach the latch-string. His first movement brought him an agony to be endured only with teeth and eyes closed, only by summoning to the minute task of thrusting his hand upward along the rough door all the forces of his being down to the last shred of vitality. At once the indomitable spirit of the woods-runner answered the call. Regis Brugiere concentrated his will on a pinpoint. Like a sprinter his volition was fixed on a goal, beyond which lay collapse. Inch by inch the hand kept on, blindly groping. It reached the latch-string; passed it by. Then, like a flame before it expires, the spirit of Regis Brugiere blazed out. With strange contortions of the body and writhings of the face his form came upright, the arm still reaching. So it swayed for a moment, then fell. The man's will-power ran from him in a last supreme effort. Twice more he struggled blindly, but the efforts were feeble. At last with a sigh he gave himself to the cold, which had been waiting. And the cold was kind. Regis Brugiere fell asleep. Five days later Jim, the black-and-white setter-dog, ceased his restless wanderings to and fro, ceased trying to leap to the oiled window beyond which lay the forest and food in abundance, ceased vain clawings below the shelf-high supplies of flour and bacon, to curl himself by the door as near as possible to the master who lay without. There he starved, dreaming in a merciful torpor of partridges in the snow. Thus was the way of justice fulfilled in the case of Regis Brugiere and the setter-dog Jim. VI THE LIFE OF THE WINDS OF HEAVEN I