n another minute he was back with his friends. "They're dead asleep,"
he said, joyfully. "I could hear them snore. The formaldehyde began
to smell strong before I let it down. How long shall we leave it?"

"We don't want to kill them," said Horace.

"No danger," Peter remarked. "The draft from the big chimney will keep
clearing the air. I'd leave it till all the stuff is vaporized--say, a
couple of hours. The only thing I dread is that some one may wake up;
but then, he wouldn't know what the smell was, and the spirit flame is
so pale that it's almost invisible."

They watched the cabin intently. All remained deathly quiet. It was
very cold as they crouched there in the snow. Horace kept his rifle
ready, but finally his vigilance slackened. They walked about to keep
from freezing, talked in whispers, and still watched the silent hut.

Suddenly Horace clutched Fred's arm.

"Look!" he cried. "The cabin's on fire!"

CHAPTER VIII

A thin stream of smoke was rising from the hole in the roof of the
cabin. From the chimney volumes of vapor had suddenly begun to pour
out into the moonlight. The dim glow at the window now and then flared
up brightly.

"That spirit lamp must have set fire to something. Those men will be
burned to death. Come, we must try to get them out!" Horace cried.

They rushed together to the cabin door. It was barricaded on the
inside; they battered it with kicks and blows for a good half-minute,
and at last it yielded.

A gush of smoke and suffocating fumes burst out into their faces, and
the boys staggered back. The inside of the cabin appeared to be all in
flames, but it was so obscured by smoke that they could see nothing
clearly.

With the opening of the door the fire seemed to burn more fiercely. It
seemed impossible that anything could be alive in that place; but Fred
shut his eyes and dashed blindly in.

He stumbled over the body of a dog, and kicked it outside the door.
Choking with the smoke and the formaldehyde fumes, he took another
step, and his foot struck something soft; it was the body of a man.

Fred stooped and tried to pick the body up by the shoulders. Suddenly
through the smoke Peter appeared at his side, and helped him; together
they got the man out and laid him down on the snow. He was one of the
French Canadians, apparently lifeless.

"Is he dead?" gasped Fred to Macgregor, who bent over the prostrate
form.

The medical student peered und