"Say, I wonder if there's any one out in this bedlam of a night?"
"If there is, God help him," said the Halfbreed. "He'll last about as long as a snowball in hell."
"Yes, fancy wandering round out there, dazed and desperate; fancy the wind knocking you down and heaping the snow on you; fancy going on and on in the darkness till you freeze stiff. Ugh!"
Again I shuddered. Then, as the other two sat in silence, my mind strayed to other things. Chiefly I thought of Berna, all alone in Dawson. I longed to be back with her again. I thought of Locasto. Where in his wild wanderings had he got to? I thought of Glengyle and Garry. How had he fared after Mother died? Why did he not marry? Once a week I got a letter from him, full of affection and always urging me to come home. In my letters I had never mentioned Berna. There was time enough for that.
Lord! a terrific gust of wind shook the cabin. It howled and screamed insanely through the heaving night. Then there came a lull, a strange, deep lull, deathlike after the mighty blast. And in the sudden quiet it seemed to me I heard a hollow cry.
"Hist! What was that?" whispered the Halfbreed.
Jim, too, was listening intently.
"Seems to me I heard a moan."
"Sounded like the cry of an outcast soul. Maybe it's the spirit of some poor devil that's lost away out in the night. I hate to open the door for nothing. It will make the place like an ice-house."
Once more we listened intently, holding our breath. There it was again, a low, faint moan.