What he saw was like a picture suddenly revealed for an instant by a flashlight. In the cabin there were four men. Two sat at a table directly in front of him. One held a dice box poised in the air, and had turned a rough, bearded face toward him. The other was a younger man, and in this moment it struck Billy as strange that he should be clutching a can of beans between his hands. A third man stared from where he had been looking down upon the dice-play of the other two. As Billy came in he was in the act of lowering a half-filled bottle from his lips. The fourth man sat on the edge of a bunk, with a face so white and thin that he might have been taken for a corpse if it had not been for the dark glare in his sunken eyes. Billy smelled the odor of whisky; he smelled food. He saw no sign of welcome in the faces turned toward him, but he advanced upon them, mumbling incoherently. And then the spark, the fighting spark in him, gave out, and he crumpled down on the floor. He heard a voice which came to him from a great distance, and which said, "Who the hell is this?" and then, after what seemed to be a long time, he heard that same voice say, "Pitch him back into the snow." After that he lost consciousness. But in that last moment between light and darkness he experienced a strange thrill that made him want to spring to his feet, for it seemed to him that he had recognized the voice that had said "Pitch him back into the snow." XXII INTO THE SOUTH A long time before he awoke Billy knew that he was not in the snow, and that hot stuff was running down his throat. When he opened his eyes there was no longer a light burning in the cabin. It was day. He felt strangely comfortable, but there was something in the cabin that stirred him from his rest. It was the odor of frying bacon. All of his hunger had come back. The joy of life, of anticipation, shone in his thin face as he pulled himself up. Another face-- the bearded face-- red-eyed, almost animal-like in its fierce questioning, bent over him. "Where's your grub, pardner?" The question was like a stab. Billy did not hear his own voice as he explained. "Got none!" The bearded man's voice was like a bellow as he turned upon the others, "He's got no grub!" In that moment Billy choked back the cry on his lips. He knew the voice now-- and the man. It was Bucky Smith! He half rose to his feet and then dropped back. Bucky had not recognized him. His own beard, shaggy hair, and pinched face had saved him from recognition. Fate had played his way. "We'll divvy up, Bucky," came a weak voice. It was from the thin, white-faced man who had sat corpselike on the edge of his bunk the night before. "Divvy hell!" growled the other. "It's up to you-- you 'n' Sweedy. You're to blame!" You're to blame!