nic, but he fought
against it and kept calm. He pulled on his mittens with his teeth, and
threshed his arms back and forth, beating his hands with all his might
against his sides. He did this sitting down, and he stood up to do it;
and all the while the dog sat in the snow, its wolf-brush of a tail
curled around warmly over its forefeet, its sharp wolf-ears pricked
forward intently as it watched the man. And the man as he beat and
threshed with his arms and hands, felt a great surge of envy as he
regarded the creature that was warm and secure in its natural covering.

After a time he was aware of the first far-away signals of sensation in
his beaten fingers. The faint tingling grew stronger till it evolved
into a stinging ache that was excruciating, but which the man hailed with
satisfaction. He stripped the mitten from his right hand and fetched
forth the birch-bark. The exposed fingers were quickly going numb again.
Next he brought out his bunch of sulphur matches. But the tremendous
cold had already driven the life out of his fingers. In his effort to
separate one match from the others, the whole bunch fell in the snow. He
tried to pick it out of the snow, but failed. The dead fingers could
neither touch nor clutch. He was very careful. He drove the thought of
his freezing feet; and nose, and cheeks, out of his mind, devoting his
whole soul to the matches. He watched, using the sense of vision in
place of that of touch, and when he saw his fingers on each side the
bunch, he closed them--that is, he willed to close them, for the wires
were drawn, and the fingers did not obey. He pulled the mitten on the
right hand, and beat it fiercely against his knee. Then, with both
mittened hands, he scooped the bunch of matches, along with much snow,
into his lap. Yet he was no better off.

After some manipulation he managed to get the bunch between the heels of
his mittened hands. In this fashion he carried it to his mouth. The ice
crackled and snapped when by a violent effort he opened his mouth. He
drew the lower jaw in, curled the upper lip out of the way, and scraped
the bunch with his upper teeth in order to separate a match. He
succeeded in getting one, which he dropped on his lap. He was no better
off. He could not pick it up. Then he devised a way. He picked it up
in his teeth and scratched it on his leg. Twenty times he scratched
before he succeeded in lighting it. As it flamed he held it with