on the Alaskan winter-trail.

Slowly the gray light came stealing through the gloom, imperceptibly at
first, so that it was almost with surprise that they noticed the vague
loom of the trail underfoot. Next, they were able to see the
wheel-dog, and then the whole string of running dogs and snow-stretches
on either side. Then the near bank loomed for a moment and was gone,
loomed a second time and remained. In a few minutes the far bank, a
mile away, unobtrusively came into view, and ahead and behind, the
whole frozen river could be seen, with off to the left a wide-extending
range of sharp-cut, snow-covered mountains. And that was all. No sun
arose. The gray light remained gray.

Once, during the day, a lynx leaped lightly across the trail, under the
very nose of the lead-dog, and vanished in the white woods. The dogs'
wild impulses roused. They raised the hunting-cry of the pack, surged
against their collars, and swerved aside in pursuit. Daylight, yelling
"Whoa!" struggled with the gee-pole and managed to overturn the sled
into the soft snow. The dogs gave up, the sled was righted, and five
minutes later they were flying along the hard-packed trail again. The
lynx was the only sign of life they had seen in two days, and it,
leaping velvet-footed and vanishing, had been more like an apparition.

At twelve o'clock, when the sun peeped over the earth-bulge, they
stopped and built a small fire on the ice. Daylight, with the ax,
chopped chunks off the frozen sausage of beans. These, thawed and
warmed in the frying-pan, constituted their meal. They had no coffee.
He did not believe in the burning of daylight for such a luxury. The
dogs stopped wrangling with one another, and looked on wistfully. Only
at night did they get their pound of fish. In the meantime they worked.

The cold snap continued. Only men of iron kept the trail at such low
temperatures, and Kama and Daylight were picked men of their races.
But Kama knew the other was the better man, and thus, at the start, he
was himself foredoomed to defeat. Not that he slackened his effort or
willingness by the slightest conscious degree, but that he was beaten
by the burden he carried in his mind. His attitude toward Daylight was
worshipful. Stoical, taciturn, proud of his physical prowess, he found
all these qualities incarnated in his white companion. Here was one
that excelled in the things worth excelling in, a man-god ready to
hand, and Kama