Glenister unconsciously turned towards his cabin, but at leaving
the lighted streets the thought of its darkness and silence made
him shudder. Not now! He could not bear that stillness and the
company of his thoughts. He dared not be alone. Dextry would be
down-town, undoubtedly, and he, too, must get into the light and
turmoil. He licked his lips and found that they were cracked and
dry.

At rare intervals during the past years he had staggered in from a
long march where, for hours, he had waged a bitter war with cold
and hunger, his limbs clumsy with fatigue, his garments wet and
stiff, his mind slack and sullen. At such extreme seasons he had
felt a consuming thirst, a thirst which burned and scorched until
his very bones cried out feverishly. Not a thirst for water, nor a
thirst which eaten snow could quench, but a savage yearning of his
whole exhausted system for some stimulant, for some coursing fiery
fluid that would burn and strangle. A thirst for whiskey--for
brandy! Remembering these occasional ferocious desires, he had
become charitable to such unfortunates as were too weak to
withstand similar temptations.

Now with a shock he caught himself in the grip of a thirst as
insistent as though the cold bore down and the weariness of
endless heavy miles wrapped him about. It was no foolish wish to
drown his thoughts nor to banish the grief that preyed upon him,
but only thirst! Thirst!--a crying, trembling, physical lust to
quench the fires that burned inside. He remembered that it had
been more than a year since he had tasted whiskey. Now the fever
of the past few hours had parched his every tissue.