It moved slowly, disappeared for a few minutes in one of the dips of the plain, and came into view again much nearer.

This time he made out a man, and behind, a sledge and dogs.
"It's Pierre," he shivered, closing the door and coming back to the stove.

"I wonder what the deuce the breed will say when he finds a stranger here and his grub half gone." After a little he heard the shrill creaking of a sledge on the crust outside and then a man's voice.

The sounds stopped close to the cabin and were followed by a knock at the door.
"Come in!" cried Philip, and in the same breath it flashed upon him that it could not be the breed, and that it must be a mighty particular and unusual personage to knock at all.
The door opened and a man came in.

He was a little man, and was bundled in a great beaver overcoat and a huge beaver cap that concealed all of his face but his eyes, the tip of his nose, and the frozen end of a beard which stuck out between the laps of his turned-up collar like a horn.