There was no other house within miles of the place, but solitariness was a habit with Jubilee Jim, and he did not miss human companionship. Ten years before, the man who had chosen that wild spot and had built the bungalow for occasional summer outings with his chosen comrades, in which they might shoot and fish and live in primitive, health-giving fashion, has ensconced the old negro there as general cook and care-taker. He had built himself a tight little cabin close at hand and remained there year in and year out to guard the building against the frequent forest fires. In his pottering negro way he was a Jack of many trades, in the summer cultivating a little cleared patch of "garden truck" back of his cabin and in winter trapping small game, and of evenings poring over his Bible, spelling out the words laboriously--a gift he had learned many years before from some country "missioner." Three or four times a year, leaving the lean hound in possession, he trudged ten miles to the nearest village for what supplies he needed. But on these occasions he felt no temptation to remain with his kind, toiling back contentedly to his little cabin, his hound, and his Bible. Suddenly, in the tense frozen silence, the great hound stirred and lifted his head with a low guttural growl. His master woke and turned on the creaking couch. "He-e-sh!" he said impatiently. "Whut fo' yo' want ter mek dat noise en steal mah sleep!" At the remonstrance the lean tail thumped the board floor, but another louder growl, deep and menacing, came from the shaggy throat. The old negro lifted himself and listened. "Sumpen out dar!" muttered Jubilee Jim, straining his ears, for now he caught the sound that had pricked the acuter hearing of the animal--a curious, struggling sound like something wallowing in heavy snowdrifts. "Sumpen _big_!" Jubilee Jim's wrinkled face looked puzzled in the moonlight and his eyes rolled to the wall where, on two wooden pegs, sat an old-fashioned shot-gun. "Don' reck'n et's er bar!" he whispered to the hound. "Ain't ben no bar eroun' hyuh en mawn thuhty yeahs!" He got up and set his ear to the crack of the door. As he bent his stooped frame, something lunged against the wall outside, and at the sound the hound's bristles rose and he sent forth a fierce, rumbling bay that rattled the window. "Et's er _man_!" said Jubilee Jim. He turned hastily to the rough-hewn table and lighted a lantern; then snapping a chain into the dog's collar and tethering him to the wall, he went to the door and lifted its heavy bar. It opened inward and there half stumbled, half fell across the threshold a snowy figure that collapsed at his feet. "Mah Lawd!" ejaculated the old man. "What he doin' hyuh?"