The old-timer thawed out a slab of dried salmon till the fat began to frizzle and fed each husky a pound of the fish and a lump of tallow. He and Gordon made a pot of tea and ate some meat sandwiches they had brought with them to save cooking until night.
When they took the trail again it was in moccasins instead of mukluks. The weather was growing steadily colder and with each degree of fall in the thermometer the trail became easier.
"Mushing at fifty below zero is all right when it is all right," explained Holt in the words of the old prospector. "But when it isn't right it's hell."
"Nope. But she's on the way. When your breath makes a kinder crackling noise she's fifty."
Travel was much easier now. There was a crust on the snow that held up the dogs and the sled so that trail-breaking was not necessary. The little party pounded steadily over the barren hills. There was no sign of life except what they brought with them out of the Arctic silence and carried with them into the greater silence beyond. A little cloud of steam enveloped them as they moved, the moisture from the breath of nine moving creatures in a waste of emptiness.
Each of the men wrapped a long scarf around his mouth and nose for protection, and as the part in front of his face became a sheet of ice shifted the muffler to another place.
Night fell in the middle of the afternoon, but they kept traveling. Not till they were well up toward the summit of the divide did they decide to camp. They drove into a little draw and unharnessed the weary dogs. It was bitterly cold, but they were forced to set up the tent and stove to keep from freezing. Their numbed fingers made a slow job of the camp preparations. At last the stove was going, the dogs fed, and they themselves thawed out. They fell asleep shortly to the sound of the mournful howling of the dogs outside.
Long before daybreak they were afoot again. Holt went out to chop some wood for the stove while Gordon made breakfast preparations. The little miner brought in an armful of wood and went out to get a second supply. A few moments later Elliot heard a cry.
He stepped out of the tent and ran to the spot where Holt was lying under a mass of ice and snow. The young man threw aside the broken blocks that had plunged down from a ledge above.