The other shook his head.
"Well, I'll tell you. Seventy-four below zero by spirit
thermometer on the sled."
"That's one hundred and six below freezing point - too cold for
travelling, eh?"
"Practically suicide," was the doctor's verdict. "One exerts
himself. He breathes heavily, taking into his lungs the frost
itself. It chills his lungs, freezes the edges of the tissues. He
gets a dry, hacking cough as the dead tissue sloughs away, and dies
the following summer of pneumonia, wondering what it's all about.
I'll stay in this cabin for a week, unless the thermometer rises at
least to fifty below."
"I say, Tess," he said, the next moment, "don't you think that
coffee's boiled long enough!"
At the sound of the woman's name, John Messner became suddenly
alert. He looked at her quickly, while across his face shot a
haunting expression, the ghost of some buried misery achieving
swift resurrection. But the next moment, and by an effort of will,
the ghost was laid again. His face was as placid as before, though
he was still alert, dissatisfied with what the feeble light had
shown him of the woman's face.
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