A little way to the east, on the bank of a small creek, his father and his traitorous partner had once had a mining claim,--a mine they had tried unsuccessfully to operate before Bronson had made his big strike. They had built a small cabin, and for nearly thirty years it had stood moldering and forgotten. Twice in his life Bill had seen it,--once as a boy, when his father had taken him there on some joyous, holiday excursion, and once in his travels Bill had beheld it at a distance. Its stove had rotted away years since; it contained neither food nor blankets nor furniture, yet it was a shelter against the night and the cold. And even now it was within half a mile of where he stood. Exultant and thankful, Bill turned in his tracks and mushed over toward it. XXI There was plenty of heart-breaking work to do when Bill finally reached the little cabin. The snow had banked up to the depth of several feet around it and had blown and packed against the door. He took off one of his snowshoes to use as a shovel and stolidly began the work of removing the barricade. There was no opening the door against the pressure of the snow. Besides, the bolt was solidly rusted. But after a few weary strokes it occurred to him that the easiest way would be to cut some sort of an opening in the top of the door, just large enough for his body to crawl through. As the cabin was abandoned there would be no possible disadvantage to such an opening: and since the fire had to be built outside the cabin, against the backlogs, the door would have to be left open anyway, to admit the heat. With a few strokes of his sharp little camp ax he cut away the planks, leaving a black hole in the door. He lighted a match and peered in. The interior was unchanged since his previous visit, years before. The cabin had no floor, not the least vestige of furniture, and rodents had littered the ground with leaves. He turned to his toil of making a fire. First he cut down a spruce--a heart-breaking task with his little ax--then laboriously hacked it into lengths. These he bore to the cabin, staggering with the load. He split the logs, cutting some of them into firewood for kindling. Then he made a pile of shavings. He tested the wind and found it blowing straight west and away from the cabin. He felt oddly tired and dull, much too tired to strain and listen for some whispered message of an inner voice that seemed to be trying hard to get his attention, a few little, vague misgivings that haunted him. His comfort depended, he told himself, on the heat of the fire beating in through the little opening of the cabin door, so he placed the backlog just as close as he dared in front. Then he laid down split pieces for frame of his fire and erected his heap of kindling.