Delilah of the Snows by Harold Bindloss

The stars were paling overhead, and the snow that cut against the sky was growing white again; but it was very cold among the pines where Leger was busy about the crackling fire. A column of smoke rose slowly straight up into the nipping air, and the blaze flickered redly upon the clustering trunks, while the sound of an unfrozen rapid broke faintly through the snapping of the fire. Leger, who felt his fingers stiffening, took up his axe, and the rhythmic thudding rang sharply in the stillness of the woods when Hetty appeared in the door of the shanty, shadowy and shapeless in the coarse blanket she had thrown about her shoulders. She shivered a little as she looked around her.

"It has been a bitter night -- the cold woke me when the fire got low," she said. "Tomlinson must have felt it horribly. I wonder where he's getting his breakfast? You shouldn't have let him go."