And yet this Wolverine, who was so wise in all wickedness and witty in
evil-doing, had not walked into the afternoon before he began to think
of the third fire. "Truly," he said to himself, "who knows but the
weather may take a turn to a thaw, and give us a warm night? Hum! ha!
methinks by the look of the clouds the wind will soon be southwesterly.
Have I not heard my grandmother say that such a color, even the red,
meant something?--I forget what, but it might be a warm change. Luck be
on me, I will risk the odds." And, saying this, he set up the sticks
again; and this was the last fire, though it was not even the first
night.
And when he came after dark to the first camping place it grew cold in
earnest. Howbeit Lox, thinking that what was good for once must be good
forever, made him his little pile of sticks and jumped over them. It
was of no avail. Finally, when he had jumped twenty or thirty times
more, there arose a little smoke, and, having his heart cheered by
this, he kept on jumping. Now it is said that there can be no smoke
without fire, but this time it went not beyond smoke. Then Lox jumped
again, and this time the Indian Devil came up within him, and he swore
by it that he would jump till it blazed or burst. So he kept on, and
yet there came no comfort, not even a spark; and being at last aweary
he fell down in a swoon, and so froze to death.
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