There was a man just out of Bangor the winter before, walking just so beside his team, and he kept on walking, some folks said, after the breath was gone, and they found him frozen up against the sleigh-poles.  I would have given a good deal if I needn’t have thought of that just then.  But I did, and I kept walking on.

Pretty soon Bess stopped short.  Beauty was pulling on,—­Beauty always did pull on,—­but she stopped too.  I couldn’t stop so easily, so I walked along like a machine, up on a line with the creaturs’ ears.  I did stop then, or you never would have heard this story, Johnny.

Two paces,—­and those two hundred feet shot down like a plummet.  A great cloud of snow-flakes puffed up over the edge.  There were rocks at my right hand, and rocks at my left.  There was the sky overhead.  I was in the Gray Goth!

I sat down as weak as a baby.  If I didn’t think of Ben Gurnell then, I never thought of him.  It roused me up a bit, perhaps, for I had the sense left to know that I couldn’t afford to sit down just yet, and I remembered a shanty that I must have passed without seeing; it was just at the opening of the place where the rocks narrowed, built, as they build their light-houses, to warn folks to one side.  There was a log or something put up after Gurnell went over, but it was of no account, coming on it suddenly.  There was no going any farther that night, that was clear; so I put about into the hut, and got my fire going, and Bess and Beauty and I, we slept together.

It was an outlandish name to give it, seems to me, anyway.  I don’t know what a Goth is, Johnny; maybe you do.  There was a great figger up on the rock, about eight feet high; some folks thought it looked like a man.  I never thought so before, but that night it did kind of stare in through the door as natural as life.

When I woke up in the morning I thought I was on fire.  I stirred and turned over, and I was ice.  My tongue was swollen up so I couldn’t swallow without strangling.  I crawled up to my feet, and every bone in me was stiff as a shingle.

Bess was looking hard at me, whinnying for her breakfast.  “Bess,” says I, very slow, “we must get home—­to-night—­any—­how.”

I pushed open the door.  It creaked out into a great drift, and slammed back.  I squeezed through and limped out.  The shanty stood up a little, in the highest part of the Goth.  I went down a little,—­I went as far as I could go.  There was a pole lying there, blown down in the night; it came about up to my head.  I sunk it into the snow, and drew it up.

Just six feet.

I went back to Bess and Beauty, and I shut the door.  I told them I couldn’t help it,—­something ailed my arms,—­I couldn’t shovel them out to-day.  I must lie down and wait till to-morrow.

I waited till to-morrow.  It snowed all day, and it snowed all night.  It was snowing when I pushed the door out again into the drift.  I went back and lay down.  I didn’t seem to care.