He worked slowly and carefully, keenly aware of his dan-
ger. Gradually, as the flame grew stronger, he increased the size of the twigs with which he fed it… He knew there must be no failure…Already the sensation had gone out of his feet. To build the fire he had been forced to remove his mittens, and the fingers had quickly gone numb. His pace of four miles an hour had kept his heart pumping blood to the surface of his body and to all the extremities. But the instant he stopped, the action of the pump eased down…
But he was safe…There was the fire, snapping and crackling and promising life with every dancing flame. He started to untie his moccasins. They were coated with ice; the thick German socks were like sheaths of iron half way to the knees; and the moccasin strings were like rods of steel all twisted and knotted as by some conflagration.
But before he could cut the strings, it happened. It was his own fault, or, rather, his mistake. He should not have built the fire under the spruce tree. He should have built it in the open…Each time he had pulled a twig he had com- municated a slight agitation to the tree—an imperceptible agitation, so far as he was concerned, but an agitation suf- ficient to bring about the disaster. High up in the tree one bough capsized its load of snow. This fell on the boughs beneath, capsizing them. The process continued. It grew like an avalanche, and it descended without warning upon the man and the fire, and the fire was blotted out! Where it had burned was a mantle of fresh and disordered snow. The man was shocked...
[Ed. Note: This classic story deserves to be read in its en- tirety.]
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DISTINCTLY MONTANA • WINTER 2013
