Occasionally a dog whined or snarled, but in the main
the team kept silent. Only could be heard the sharp, jarring
grate of the steel runners over the hard surface and the creak of
the straining sled.
As if through a wall, Daylight had passed from the hum and roar
of the Tivoli into another world--a world of silence and
immobility. Nothing stirred. The Yukon slept under a coat of
ice three feet thick. No breath of wind blew. Nor did the sap
move in the hearts of the spruce trees that forested the river
banks on either hand. The trees, burdened with the last
infinitesimal pennyweight of snow their branches could hold,
stood in absolute petrifaction. The slightest tremor would have
dislodged the snow, and no snow was dislodged. The sled was the
one point of life and motion in the midst of the solemn quietude,
and the harsh churn of its runners but emphasized the silence
through which it moved.
It was a dead world, and furthermore, a gray world. The weather
was sharp and clear; there was no moisture in the atmosphere, no
fog nor haze; yet the sky was a gray pall. The reason for this
was that, though there was no cloud in the sky to dim the
brightness of day, there was no sun to give brightness.
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