The wind increased in force and Jim became restless. Thoughts of Flora Ducat grew insistent. At last he got to his feet again and set to gathering dry twigs and branches that were within his reach but which did not impair his shelter. This done, he crawled out of the hole and worked farther afield, using a heavy knife. The thicket was ten or a dozen paces in diameter, close-growing and thick with dead wood. He returned to his den, heaped the fuel conveniently around the mouth of it, settled down again and made a tiny fire on the frozen ground beside him. He was warm enough without the fire, but the lively flame cheered him. He fed it with dry twigs and fern, and soon with little sticks as thick as his thumb; and so it grew from the size of his fist to the size of his head; and still it grew, and he was forced to enlarge the pit. He ate a little bread and cold pork and smoked another cigarette. A thin spray of snow continued to sift through the roof of brush and fall hissing into the fire. He grew drowsy and nodded. He was aroused by the yelping of a dog, then by a snowslide, an increased hissing of the fire, and the dog itself leaping upon him. He quieted the dog, rolled his blankets and placed them at a safe distance from the fire, snugged himself for the trail, slung his rifle, threw dry brush and green on the fire, and crawled out of the den. The dog leaped over him and plunged ahead. He crawled from the edge of the thicket into a world of smothering, flying white. Jim followed the dog. He resembled a swimmer using the overhead racing stroke in a sea of foam and froth. The drift and wind were almost continuous by this time, but in every lull he cleared his eyes and looked behind and saw the smoke of his fire. The dog returned to him often, encouraging him with yelps and jumps. In places the drift was so deep that he was forced to stand and hop on his right leg, plunge, stagger up, and hop again. The second dog appeared for a moment, leaped upon him, slashed his face with a wet tongue, and vanished into the flying snow. Flora Ducat had ceased to struggle by the time Jim found her. Only her red hood and a red stocking showed above the drift. He knelt to windward of her and shook her with both hands. Then he cleared the big webs from her feet and hoisted her to her knees. She opened her eyes and looked at him with a bewildered expression. "Are you hurt?" he asked. She shook her head. "Frozen?" he asked. "Only tired--tired to death," she said. The blinding drift sprang up and drove over them. He shielded her from it. He removed her pack from her shoulders and swung it to his own back and added her snowshoes to the load. "And I have cramps," she moaned. "Snowshoers' cramps--in both legs--terribly." "Then you must crawl," he said. "Follow me." CHAPTER XIV THE MAN-HUNTER