s sort of work learns you
not to take chances. If you want anything in the night just whistle."
It had been a hard day with Brokaw, and he slept soundly. For an hour
Billy lay awake, thinking of home, and listening to the wail of the
storm. Then he, too, fell into sleep--a restless, uneasy slumber filled
with troubled visions. For a time there had come a lull in the storm,
but now it broke over the cabin with increased fury. A hand seemed
slapping at the window, threatening to break it. The spruce boughs
moaned and twisted overhead, and a volley of wind and snow shot
suddenly down the chimney, forcing open the stove door, so that a shaft
of ruddy light cut like a red knife through the dense gloom of the
cabin. In varying ways the sounds played a part in Billy's dreams. In
all those dreams, and segments of dreams, the girl--his wife--was
present. Once they had gone for wild flowers and had been caught in a
thunderstorm, and had run to an old and disused barn in the middle of a
field for shelter. He was back in that barn again, with HER--and he
could feel her trembling against him, and he was stroking her hair, as
the thunder crashed over them and the lightning filled her eyes with
fear. After that there came to him a vision of the early autumn nights
when they had gone corn roasting, with other young people. He had
always been afflicted with a slight nasal trouble, and smoke irritated
him. It set him sneezing, and kept him dodging about the fire, and she
had always laughed when the smoke persisted in following him about,
like a young scamp of a boy bent on tormenting him. The smoke was
unusually persistent to-night. He tossed in his bunk, and buried his
face in the blanket that answered for a pillow. The smoke reached him
even there, and he sneezed chokingly. In that instant the girl's face
disappeared. He sneezed again--and awoke.

A startled gasp broke from his lips, and the handcuffs about his wrists
clanked as he raised his hands to his face. In that moment his dazed
senses adjusted themselves. The cabin was full of smoke. It partly
blinded him, but through it he could see tongues of fire shooting
toward the ceiling. He could hear the crackling of burning pitch, and
he yelled wildly to Brokaw. In an instant the sergeant was on his feet.
He rushed to the table, where he had placed a pail of water the evening
before, and Billy heard the hissing of the water as it struck the
flaming wall.

"Never mind that," he shoute