We can't lose you now." With a parting word he turned and set off down the dark street, walking unsteadily through the snow, for his feet had to be tossed ahead of him, and he could not always do it accurately.

And the cold, now that he was out of the water, came more keenly upon him, only it seemed to burn him through and through with a white heat.

He felt his arms stiffening in his wet sleeves, and his knees grow weak.

He staggered on past a row of cabins, from which the light of fires shone out on the snow.

At almost every step he stumbled out of the narrow path that had been trodden.
"To your own fireside." He recalled the words of Elder Maltby, and remembered his own lone, dark cabin, himself perhaps without strength to build a fire or to get food, perhaps without even strength to reach the place, for he felt weaker now, all at once, and put his hand out to support himself against the fence.
He had been hearing footsteps behind him, creaking rapidly over the packed snow-path.