es. The trail was faint. A foot
of snow had fallen since the last sled had passed over, and he was glad
he was without a sled, travelling light. In fact, he carried nothing but
the lunch wrapped in the handkerchief. He was surprised, however, at the
cold. It certainly was cold, he concluded, as he rubbed his numbed nose
and cheek-bones with his mittened hand. He was a warm-whiskered man, but
the hair on his face did not protect the high cheek-bones and the eager
nose that thrust itself aggressively into the frosty air.

At the man's heels trotted a dog, a big native husky, the proper wolf-
dog, grey-coated and without any visible or temperamental difference from
its brother, the wild wolf. The animal was depressed by the tremendous
cold. It knew that it was no time for travelling. Its instinct told it
a truer tale than was told to the man by the man's judgment. In reality,
it was not merely colder than fifty below zero; it was colder than sixty
below, than seventy below. It was seventy-five below zero. Since the
freezing-point is thirty-two above zero, it meant that one hundred and
seven degrees of frost obtained. The dog did not know anything about
thermometers. Possibly in its brain there was no sharp consciousness of
a condition of very cold such as was in the man's brain. But the brute
had its instinct. It experienced a vague but menacing apprehension that
subdued it and made it slink along at the man's heels, and that made it
question eagerly every unwonted movement of the man as if expecting him
to go into camp or to seek shelter somewhere and build a fire. The dog
had learned fire, and it wanted fire, or else to burrow under the snow
and cuddle its warmth away from the air.

The frozen moisture of its breathing had settled on its fur in a fine
powder of frost, and especially were its jowls, muzzle, and eyelashes
whitened by its crystalled breath. The man's red beard and moustache
were likewise frosted, but more solidly, the deposit taking the form of
ice and increasing with every warm, moist breath he exhaled. Also, the
man was chewing tobacco, and the muzzle of ice held his lips so rigidly
that he was unable to clear his chin when he expelled the juice. The
result was that a crystal beard of the colour and solidity of amber was
increasing its length on his chin. If he fell down it would shatter
itself, like glass, into brittle fragments. But he did not mind the
appendage. It was the penalt