tever. At bedtime he
repeated his performance of the night before, but with the same result.
When he awoke on the second morning, however, he found the desert town
wrapped in the dark folds of a fog that chilled his marrow and clung to
his clothing in little beads. It was a strange phenomenon, for the air
was bitterly cold and yet saturated with moisture; mountain and valley
were hidden in an impalpable dust that was neither fog nor snow, but a
freezing, uncomfortable combination of both.

DeVoe hugged the fire all day, saying to his guest: "You'll have to do
the trick alone, Butler; it's too deucedly unpleasant sitting there in
the cold every night. I'll get sick."

"It's not very agreeable for me, either, and the least you can do is to
keep me company. That's the agreement, you know."

After some argument DeVoe acceded, saying, "Oh, if you want me to hold
your hand while you freeze I suppose I'll have to do it, although I
can't see the use of it."

That night when Murray had regained his cheerless room after taking his
Turkish bath he drank a goblet of raw whisky, then flung wide the door,
and, standing upon the sill, half nude and gleaming with perspiration,
inhaled the deadly Poganip. When the fiery liquor had driven the last
drop of his hot blood to the surface he seized a bottle of alcohol and,
upending it, drenched his body. If he had suffered previously, he now
endured supreme agony. As the alcohol evaporated upon his naked skin it
fairly froze the blood he had forced up from his heart's cavities. He
groaned with the pain of it. Again he felt as if his body were coating
with ice; his lungs contracted with that agonizing grip.

"This is too c-cold for me," DeVoe chattered, finally. "I'm going to
beat it."

As Butler Murray cowered and shook in his bed an hour later he decided
that his third and final effort had succeeded, for not only did he
plainly feel the effects of that terrible ordeal, but by every law of
nature and hygiene he was doomed. He had drunk the whisky to increase
the peripheral circulation of his body to the highest point, then by the
use of the alcohol had reduced his temperature to a frightful extent and
driven his blood back, frozen and sluggish. That was inevitably
suicidal, as the least knowledge of medicine would show; it could not be
otherwise. He was very glad, too, for this suffering was more than he
had bargained for.

He awoke in the morning feeling none the worse for his action