Mountain Kid wanted to live free on the mountain forever, but the mountain wanted him dead by morning. Last night proved it. He had slept under a lean-to of pine branches, and the cold reached through his checkered jacket and blue jeans like water through a net. He woke with frost in his red scarf and no feeling in his toes. One more night like that would finish him. He stood at the tree line and studied the slope. Below him sat an old log cabin, empty for years. Its stacked timber walls looked solid. The peaked roof still held. Smoke could rise from that stone chimney. Warmth waited inside those walls, if he could make the place his own. He walked down and pushed the door. It swung open. The single room was dry but bare. The hearth was cold and dark. He could sleep here tonight and not freeze, but a cabin without fire was just a colder box. He knelt and touched the empty grate. He needed wood, split and ready, or the walls meant nothing. He went outside and searched. Behind the cabin he found it: a pile of firewood, freshly split. Pale grain showed on the cut ends. Someone had chopped it, stacked it, and left it. The rough lengths were dry enough to burn now. Mountain Kid stared at the pile and felt his luck turn. He carried armload after armload inside. His arms shook. His breath fogged the dim room. He stacked the wood by the hearth, built a small pyramid over dry bark, and struck his flint. The bark caught. A thin flame climbed. He fed it larger pieces until the fire snapped and threw orange light across the timber walls. Heat filled the room. Mountain Kid pulled off his boots and set his frozen toes near the flames. The scarf thawed at his neck. For the first time in days, he stopped shivering. He had a roof, walls, and fire. He had survived the mountain, and now he could stay. Then he saw the boots by the door. They stood in the corner, a worn pair, laces still tied, mud dried on the soles. He had not left them. The split wood, the swept floor, the readied grate. This cabin was not empty. Someone lived here. Someone had cut that pile for their own winter, and Mountain Kid had just burned the first of it. He rose slowly. The fire crackled behind him. Outside, boots crunched on frozen ground, coming closer. Mountain Kid stood in another man's home, wearing another man's warmth, and the door began to open.