old sled-trail was plainly visible, but a dozen inches of snow covered
the marks of the last runners. In a month no man had come up or down
that silent creek. The man held steadily on. He was not much given to
thinking, and just then particularly he had nothing to think about save
that he would eat lunch at the forks and that at six o'clock he would be
in camp with the boys. There was nobody to talk to and, had there been,
speech would have been impossible because of the ice-muzzle on his mouth.
So he continued monotonously to chew tobacco and to increase the length
of his amber beard.

Once in a while the thought reiterated itself that it was very cold and
that he had never experienced such cold. As he walked along he rubbed
his cheek-bones and nose with the back of his mittened hand. He did this
automatically, now and again changing hands. But rub as he would, the
instant he stopped his cheek-bones went numb, and the following instant
the end of his nose went numb. He was sure to frost his cheeks; he knew
that, and experienced a pang of regret that he had not devised a nose-
strap of the sort Bud wore in cold snaps. Such a strap passed across the
cheeks, as well, and saved them. But it didn't matter much, after all.
What were frosted cheeks? A bit painful, that was all; they were never
serious.

Empty as the man's mind was of thoughts, he was keenly observant, and he
noticed the changes in the creek, the curves and bends and timber-jams,
and always he sharply noted where he placed his feet. Once, coming
around a bend, he shied abruptly, like a startled horse, curved away from
the place where he had been walking, and retreated several paces back
along the trail. The creek he knew was frozen clear to the bottom--no
creek could contain water in that arctic winter--but he knew also that
there were springs that bubbled out from the hillsides and ran along