, shivering, into the bed-like chair I have made for myself
out of saplings and caribou skin. It is a human skull. Only a short time
ago it was a living man, with a voice, and eyes, and brain--and that
is what makes me uncomfortable. If it were an old skull, it would be
different. But it is a new skull. Almost I fancy at times that there is
life lurking in the eyeless sockets, where the red firelight from the
pitch-weighted logs plays in grewsome flashes; and I fancy, too, that in
the brainless cavities of the skull there must still be some of the old
passion, stirred into spirit life by the very madness of this night. A
hundred times I have been sorry that I kept the thing, but never more so
than now.

How the wind howls and the pines screech above me! A pailful of snow,
plunging down my chimney, sends the chills up my spine as if it were the
very devil himself, and the steam of it surges out and upward and hides
the skull. It is absurd to go to bed, to make an effort to sleep, for
I know what my dreams would be. To-night they would be filled with this
skull--and with visions of a face, a woman's face--

Thus far had Steele written, when with a nervous laugh he sprang from
his chair, and with something that sounded very near to an oath, in the
wild tumult of the storm, crumpled the paper in his hand and flung it
among the blazing logs he had described but a few moments before.

"Confound it, this will never do!" he exclaimed, falling into his own
peculiar habit of communing with himself. "I say it won't do, Phil
Steele; deuce take it if it will! You're getting nervous, sentimental,
almost homesick. Ugh, what a beast of a night!"

He turned to the rude stone fireplace again as another blast of snow
plunged down the chimney.

"Wish I'd built a fire in the stove instead of there," he went on,
filling his pipe. "Thought it would be a little more cheerful, you know.
Lord preserve us, listen to that!"

He began walking up and down the hewn log floor of the cabin, his hands
deep in his pockets, puffing out voluminous clouds of smoke. It was
not often that Philip Steele's face was unpleasant to look upon, but
to-night it wore anything but its natural good humor. It was a strong,
thin face, set off by a square jaw, and with clear, steel-gray eyes
in which just now there shone a strange glitter, as they rested for
a moment upon the white skull over the fire. From his scrutiny of the
skull Steele turned to a rough board tab