DAY had broken cold

DAY had broken cold
And gray, when the man turned aside
High earth-bank,
Through the fat spruce timberland.

It was a steep bank,
The top, excusing
At his watch. It was nine o'clock.
Sun nor hint of sun,
In the sky. It was
Pall over the face of things, a subtle
Was due to the absence of sun. This fact did not
He was

He had seen the sun, and he knew that a few more-days
Orb, due south, would just peep above
Immediately from view. The
The Yukon lay a mile
Three feet of ice. On top of this ice were
All pure white, rolling

Ice jams of the freeze-up
His eye could see, it
Dark hairline that curved
South, and that curved and
Behind another spruce-covered island. This

Main trail--that led south five
That led north seventy miles to
The north a thousand miles to Nulato, and finally to St. Michael
Thousand miles and half a
Mysterious, far-reaching hair-line trail. the absence of sun from the

The strangeness and weirdness of
Man. It was not
He was a newcomer! In
This was his first