"I expect you've raised plenty of dust in your day? Still do, for that matter?"
"Well, I do what I can," he replied cheerfully. "I can lift a barrel easier than most, and nobody was able to dance me off the floor last Christmas! Hush--is that someone coming?"
We listened. His eyes darted toward the entrance, and in a moment he had chosen to meet danger halfway. He was taut and splendid; I could see his jaw working.
"It's nothing," I said.
Resolute and strong as a bull, he crawled out of the hut and was gone for a few minutes. When he returned, breathing heavily, he said:
"It's nothing."
We lay down for the night.
"In God's name!" he said, as he settled himself on his pine bed. I fell asleep at once, and for some time slept deeply. But during the night restlessness seized on the man again. "Peace be with you!" I heard him mutter as he crawled out of the hut.
In the morning I burned the man's bed of pine needles; it made a lively fire of crackling pine in the hut.
Outside, the ground was covered with new-fallen snow.