Fine, dry snowflakes were drifting past the upper square of a window set
in a wall of logs. The lower half was obscured by a white bulk that
shouldered up against the sash in the likeness of a muffled figure
stooping to peer in.

Lying in his bunk against the wall, the packer watched this sentinel
snowdrift grow and become human and bold and familiar. His deep-lined
visage was reduced to its bony structure. The hand was a claw with which
he plucked at the ancient fever-crust shredding from his lips: an
occupation at once so absorbing and so exhausting that often the hand
would drop and the blankets rise upon the arch of the chest in a sigh of
retarded respiration. The sigh would be followed by a cough, controlled,
as in dread of the shock to a sore and shattered frame. The snow came
faster and faster until the dim, wintry pane was a blur. Millions of atoms
crossed the watcher's weary vision, whirling, wavering, driven with an
aimless persistence, unable to pause or to stop. And the blind white
snowdrift climbed, fed, like human circumstance, from disconnected atoms
impelled by a common law.

There were sounds in the cabin: wet wood sweating on hot coals; a step
that went to and fro. Outside, a snow-weighted bough let go its load and
sprang up, scraping against the logs. Some heavy soft thing slid off the
roof and dropped with a _chug_. Then the door, that hung awry like a
drooping eyelid, gave a disreputable wink, and the whole front gable of
the cabin loomed a giant countenance with a silly forehead and an evil
leer. Now it seemed that a hand was hurling snow against the door, as a
sower scatters grain,--snow that lay like beach sand on the floor, or
melted into a crawling pool--red in the firelight, red as blood!