Early one December afternoon there entered upon this trail from the
timberless hills far away to the northward a weary team of six dogs,
driven by two men. It had been snowing since dawn, and the dim sled-tracks
were hidden beneath a six-inch fluff which rendered progress difficult and
called the whip into cruel service. A gray smother sifted down sluggishly,
shutting out hill and horizon, blending sky and landscape into a blurred
monotone, playing strange pranks with the eye that grew tired trying to
pierce it.

The travellers had been plodding sullenly, hour after hour, dispirited by
the weight of the storm, which bore them down like some impalpable,
resistless burden. There was no reality in earth, air, or sky. Their
vision was rested by no spot of color save themselves, apparently swimming
through an endless, formless atmosphere of gray.

"Fingerless" Fraser broke trail, but to Boyd Emerson, who drove, he seemed
to be a sort of dancing doll, bobbing and swaying grotesquely, as if
suspended by invisible wires. At times, it seemed to the driver's
whimsical fancy as if each of them trod a measure in the centre of a
colorless universe, something after the fashion of goldfish floating in a
globe.

Fraser pulled up without warning and instantly the dogs stopped,
straightway beginning to soothe their trail-worn pads and to strip the
ice-pellets from between their toes. But the "wheelers" were too tired to
make the effort, so Emerson went forward and performed the task for them,
while Fraser floundered back and sank to a sitting posture on the sled.

"Whew!" he exclaimed, "this is sure tough. If I don't see a tree or
something with enough color to bust this monotony I'll go dotty."