As the boy says this, the girl turns silently to the little table and pushes it toward him.
"There, Johnny, that's all there is. You must leave some for Forty-nine."
"Poor, poor John Logan!"
He eats greedily for a moment, then stops suddenly and looks into the fire.
Carrie, also looking into the fire, murmurs:
"And Sylvia Fields let them tie a dog there to keep him away! I would have killed that dog first. If John Logan should come here, I would open that door—I would open that door to him!"—There is a dark and terrified face at the window—"And I would give him bread to eat, and let him sit by this fire and get warm!"
"And I would, too—so help me, I would!" The boy pushes back his bread, and rises and goes up to his sister. "Yes, I would. I don't care what Phin Emens, or anybody says; for his mother didn't sick 'Bose' at me, she didn't!"
The pale and pitiful face at the window begins to brighten. There is snow in the long matted black locks that fall to his shoulders. For nearly half a year this man has fled from his fellow-man, a hunted grizzly, a hunted tiger of the jungle.
What wonder that his step is stealthy as he lifts the latch and enters? What wonder that his eyes have an uncommon glare as he looks around, looks back over his shoulder as he shuts the door noiselessly behind him? What wonder that his clothes hang in shreds about him, and his feet and legs are bound in thongs; that his arms are almost bare; that his bloodless face is half hidden in black and shaggy beard?
"Carrie, I have come to you. Yours is the only door that will open to me now."