Books of woodcraft often describe with what ease a fire may be built and maintained in wet snow. It works fairly well in theory, but it is a heart-breaking task in practice. Under such difficulties as she worked, it became one of those dreadful undertakings that partake of a nightmare quality,--the walking of a treadmill or the sweeping of waves from the shore.
When she secured the first length, her fire was almost extinguished. It threw a fault cloud of smoke into the air, but the flame was almost gone. The darkness dropped about her, and the wolves came stealing over the snow. She worked furiously, with the strength of desperation, and little by little she won back a tiny flame.
Her nervous vitality was flowing from her in a frightful stream. Too long she had toiled without food in the constant presence of danger, and she was very near indeed to utter exhaustion. But at the same time she knew she must not faint. That was one thing she could not do,--to fall unconscious before the last of her three cartridges was expended in the right way.
Again she went forth to the sapling, and this time it seemed to her that if she simply tossed the ax through the air, she could fell one of the gray crowd. But when she stooped to pick it up--She didn't finish the thought. She turned to coax the fire. And then she leaned sobbing over the sled.
"What's the use?" she cried. "He won't come back. What's the use of fighting any more?"
"There's always use of fighting," her father told her. He seemed to speak with difficulty, and his face looked strange and white. The cold and the exposure were having their effect on his weakened system, and unconsciousness was a near shadow indeed. "But, dearest,--if I could only make you do what I want you to--"
"You're able to climb a tree, and if you'd take these coats, you wouldn't freeze by morning. If you'd only have the strength--"
"I'm old, dear--and very tired--and I'd crawl away into the shadows, where you couldn't see. There's no use mincing words, Snowbird. You're a brave girl--always have been since a little thing, as God is my Judge--and you know we must face the truth. Better one of us die than both. And I promise--I'll never feel their fangs. And I won't take your pistol with me either."