; without the
latch, he could easily have pushed open the door by leaning against it;
if he could have pushed open the door, all would have been well with
both himself and Jim. And in this we admire the wonder of the fifth
way--the way of justice by which a man's life is bartered for a fault.

One morning in the midwinter, when it was very cold with seventy degrees
of frost, Regis Brugiere resolved to hunt the deer. As usual, he filled
the fireplace, spread a robe for Jim's accommodation, thrust the
latch-string through the small hole bored for that purpose, and set out
in the forest. When he reached the swamp edge, he removed his snow-shoes
and began carefully to pick his way along the fallen tops. Mounting on a
snow-covered root, he thrust his right foot down into an unsuspected
crevice, stumbled, and fell forward on his face.

When the blur of pain had cleared away, and he was able to take stock of
what had happened, Regis Brugiere found that he had snapped the bones of
his leg short off below the knee.

The first part of his journey home to the cabin was one of profanity;
the second of prayer; the third of grim silence. In the first he lost
his rifle; in the second his courage; in the third his knowledge of
what was about him. Like a crippled rabbit he dragged himself over the
snow, a single black spot against the whiteness. The dark forest-trees
gathered curiously about his wavering consciousness to look down on him
in aloof compassion. And over him, invisible, palpable, hovered the
dreadful north-country cold, waiting to stoop.

Regis Brugiere, by the grace of a woodsman's perseverance and the
instinct of a wild creature, gained at last the clearing in which his
cabin stood. Behind him wavered a long, deep-gouged furrow-trail,
pitiful attest of suffering. His strength was water, but he was home.
After a long time he reached the door, and rested. The incident was
cruel, but it was only one of many in a cruel way of life.

The twilight was coming down with thronging mysterious voices. Among
them clamoured fiercely the voice of the cold. Regis Brugiere felt its
breath on his heart, and, in alarm, broke through the apathy of his
condition. It was time to recall his forces, to enter where could be
found provisions and warmth. Painfully he turned on his right side and
prepared to reach the latch-string. His first movement brought him an
agony to be endured only with teeth and eyes closed, only by summoning
to the m