frozen wilderness, blinded him, cut him and snatched at his
lips as if it would pluck life itself from his lungs. He turned his back
to it and crouched low, gasping curses and half-choked prayers to the
saints. Then the full fury of the storm reached him, the dark grew
pallid with flying snow-dust, and the frozen earth seemed to quake
beneath his hands and knees. For a minute he lay flat, fighting for
breath with his arms encircling his face. He knew that he must find
shelter of some description immediately or else die terribly of
suffocation and cold. Surely he could find a thicket of spruce-tuck near
at hand? He staggered to his feet, stood hunched for a second to get the
points of the compass clear in his mind, then plunged forward, fighting
through the storm like a desperate swimmer breasting the surf. He
thought he was moving straight inland where he would be sure to stumble
soon against a sheltering thicket. But the onslaught of the storm had
bewildered him. He struggled onward; but not toward the twisted clumps
of spruces. His eyes were shut against the lashing of the snow and he
held his arms locked before him across his mouth and nostrils. The wind
eddied about him, thick as blown spray with its swirling sheets of ice
particles. It struck him on all sides, lashing his face and tearing at
his back whatever way he turned.... A scream of horror rang out for an
instant and was smothered by the roaring of the storm. So the spirit of
Jack Quinn was whirled away on the tempest--God knows whither!--and the
poor body came to rest on the frozen land-wash far below the edge of the
blind, unheeding cliff.

The storm raged all day out of the northwest, and the folk of Chance
Along kept to their cabins and clustered around their little stoves.
Even Black Dennis Nolan did not venture farther than fifty yards from
his own door. He replaced the window of Father McQueen's room, said
nothing of his loss to Cormick and the old woman, and after breakfast
went out and fought his way along to Foxey Quinn's cabin. He found the
woman in tears.

"Where bes Jack?" he asked, drawing the door tight behind him and
standing with his hand on the latch.

"He bain't here," said the woman. "He was gone from the bed when first I
opened my eyes."

The skipper was a hard man in many ways, even then. Later, as he became
established in his power, the hardness grew in him with the passing of
every day. But always a tender spot could be found in h