lifeless. Suddenly on the snug silence there was a sharp sound. A tree
outside snapped with the frost.

Charley awoke. The body seemed not to awake, for it did not stir, but
the eyes opened wide and full, looking straight before them--straight up
to the brown smoke-stained rafters, along which were ranged guns and
fishing-tackle, axes and bear-traps. Full clear blue eyes, healthy and
untired as a child's fresh from an all-night's drowse, they looked and
looked. Yet, at first, the body did not stir; only the mind seemed to be
awakening, the soul creeping out from slumber into the day. Presently,
however, as the eyes gazed, there stole into them a wonder, a trouble, an
anxiety. For a moment they strained at the rafters and the crude weapons
and implements there, then the body moved, quickly, eagerly, and turned
to see the flickering shadows made by the fire and the simple order of
the room.

A minute more, and Charley was sitting on the side of his couch, dazed
and staring. This hut, this fire, the figure by the hearth in a sound
sleep-his hand went to his head: it felt the bandage there!

He remembered now! Last night at the Cote Dorion! Last night he had
talked with Suzon Charlemagne at the Cote Dorion; last night he had drunk
harder than he had ever drunk in his life, he had defied, chaffed,
insulted the river-drivers. The whole scene came back: the faces of
Suzon and her father; Suzon's fingers on his for an instant; the glass of
brandy beside him; the lanterns on the walls; the hymn he sang; the
sermon he preached--he shuddered a little; the rumble of angry noises
round him; the tumbler thrown; the crash of the lantern, and only one
light left in the place! Then Jake Hough and his heavy hand, the flying
monocle, and his disdainful, insulting reply; the sight of the pistol in