“It's a bad thing,” said the walking-boss, “I used to be at it myself, and I know. When I wanted whisky, I needed it worse than a scalded pup does a snow bank. The first year I had a hundred and fifty dollars, and I blew her all in six days. Next year I had a little more, but she lasted me three weeks. That was better. Next year, I says to myself, I'll just save fifty of that stake, and blow the rest. So I did. After that I got to be scaler, and sort've quit. I just made a deal with the Old Fellow to leave my stake with headquarters no matter whether I call for it or not. I got quite a lot coming, now.” “Bees'n Lake!” cried Jimmy fiercely through an aperture of the door. “You'll find th' boardin'-house just across over the track,” said the woodsman, holding out his hand, “so long. See you again if you don't find a job with the Old Fellow. My name's Shearer.” “Mine is Thorpe,” replied the other. “Thank you.” The woodsman stepped forward past the carousers to the baggage compartment, where he disappeared. The revellers stumbled out the other door. Thorpe followed and found himself on the frozen platform of a little dark railway station. As he walked, the boards shrieked under his feet and the sharp air nipped at his face and caught his lungs. Beyond the fence-rail protection to the side of the platform he thought he saw the suggestion of a broad reach of snow, a distant lurking forest, a few shadowy buildings looming mysterious in the night. The air was twinkling with frost and the brilliant stars of the north country. Directly across the track from the railway station, a single building was picked from the dark by a solitary lamp in a lower-story room. The four who had descended before Thorpe made over toward this light, stumbling and laughing uncertainly, so he knew it was probably in the boarding-house, and prepared to follow them. Shearer and the station agent,--an individual much muffled,--turned to the disposition of some light freight that had been dropped from the baggage car.