In the starlit, bitter cold of a north country morning the three packed their sledge and harnessed their dogs. The rawhide was stubborn with the frost, the dogs uneasy. Knots would not tie. Pain nipped the fingers, cruel pain that ate in and in until it had exposed to the shock of little contacts every tightened nerve. Each stiff, clumsy movement was agony. From time to time one of the three thrust hand in mitten to beat the freezing back. Then a new red torture surged to the very finger-tips. They bore it in silence, working hastily, knowing that every morning of the long, winter trip this fearful hour must come. Thus each day the North would greet them, squeezing their fingers in the cruel hand-clasp of an antagonist testing their strength.

Over the supplies and blankets was drawn the skin envelope laced to the sledge. The last reluctant knot was tied. Billy, the leader of the four dogs, casting an intelligent eye at his masters, knew that all was ready, and so arose from his haunches. Dick twisted his feet skilfully into the loops of his snow-shoes. Sam, already equipped, seized the heavy dog-whip. The girl took charge of the gee-pole with which the sledge would be guided.

"Mush!--Mush on!" shouted Sam.

The four dogs leaned into their collars. The sledge creaked free of its frost anchorage and moved.

First it became necessary to drop from the elevation to the river-bed. Dick and May-may-gwán clung desperately. Sam exercised his utmost skill and agility to keep the dogs straight. The toboggan hovered an instant over the edge of the bank, then plunged, coasting down. Men hung back, dogs ran to keep ahead. A smother of light snow settled to show, in the dim starlight, the furrow of descent. And on the broad, white surface of the river were eight spot of black which represented the followers of the Long Trail.

Dick shook himself and stepped ahead of the dogs.

"Mush! Mush on!" commanded Sam again.

Dick ran on steadily in the soft snow, swinging his entire weight now on one foot, now on the other, passing the snow-shoes with the peculiar stiff swing of the ankle, throwing his heel strongly downward at each step in order to take advantage of the long snow-shoe tails' elasticity. At each step he sank deep into the feathery snow. The runner was forced to lift the toe of the shoe sharply, and the snow swirled past his ankles like foam. Behind him, in the trail thus broken and packed for them, trotted the dogs, their noses low, their jaws hanging. Sam drove with two long-lashed whips; and May-may-gwán, clinging to the gee-pole, guided the sledge.

In the absolute and dead stillness of a winter morning before the dawn the little train went like ghosts in a mist of starlight. The strange glimmering that seems at such an hour to disengage from the snow itself served merely to establish the separate bulks of that which moved across it. The bending figure of the man breaking trail, his head low, his body moving in its swing with the regularity of a pendulum; the four wolf-like dogs, also bending easily to what was not a great labour, the line of their open jaws and lolling tongues cut out against the snow; another human figure; the low, dark mass of the sledge; and again the bending figure at the rear,--all these contrasted in their half-blurred uncertainty of outline and the suggested motion of their attitude with the straight, clear silhouette of the spruce-trees against the sky.

Also the sounds of their travelling offered an analogous contrast. The dull _crunch, crunch, crunch_ of the snow-shoes, the breathing of the living beings, the glither and creak of the sledge came to the ear blurred and confused; utterly unlike the cameo stillness of the winter dawn.

Ten minutes of the really violent exertion of breaking trail warmed Dick through. His fingers ceased their protest. Each breath, blowing to steam, turned almost immediately to frost. He threw back the hood of his capote, for he knew that should it become wet from the moisture of his breath, it would freeze his skin, and with his violent exertions exposure to the air was nothing. In a short time his eyebrows and eyelashes became heavy with ice. Then slowly the moisture of his body, working outward through the wool of his clothing, frosted on the surface, so that gradually as time went on he grew to look more and more like a great white-furred animal.

The driving here on the open river was comparatively easy. Except occasionally, the straight line could be adhered to. When it became necessary to avoid an obstruction, Sam gave the command loudly, addressing Billy as the lead dog.

"Hu, Billy!" he would cry.

And promptly Billy would turn to the right. Or:

"Chac, Billy!" he would cry.

And Billy would turn to the left, with always in mind the thought of the long whip to recall his duty to man.

Then the other dogs turned after him. Claire, for her steadiness and sense, had been made sledge-dog. Always she watched sagaciously to pull the end of the sledge strongly away should the deviation not prove sufficient. Later, in the woods, when the trail should become difficult, much would depend on Claire's good sense.

Now shortly, far to the south, the sun rose. The gray world at once became brilliant. The low frost haze,--invisible until now, to be invisible all the rest of the day,--for these few moments of the level beams worked strange necromancies. The prisms of a million ice-drops on shrubs and trees took fire. A bewildering flash and gleam of jewels caught the eye in every direction. And, suspended in the air, like the shimmer of a soft and delicate veiling, wavered and floated a mist of vapour, tinted with rose and lilac, with amethyst and saffron.

As always on the Long Trail, our travellers' spirits rose with the sun. Dick lengthened his stride, the dogs leaned to their collars, Sam threw back his shoulders, the girl swung the sledge tail with added vim. Now everything was warm and bright and beautiful. It was yet too early in the day for fatigue, and the first discomforts had passed.

But in a few moments Dick stopped. The sledge at once came to a halt. They rested.

At the end of ten minutes Sam stepped to the front, and Dick took the dog-whip. The young man's muscles, still weak from their long inaction, ached cruelly. Especially was this true of the ligaments at the groin--used in lifting high the knee,--and the long muscles along the front of the shinbone,--by which the toe of the snow-shoe was elevated. He found himself very glad to drop behind into the beaten trail.

The sun by now had climbed well above the horizon, but did little to mitigate the cold. As long as the violent movement was maintained a warm and grateful glow followed the circulation, but a pause, even of a few moments, brought the shivers. And always the feathery, clogging snow,--offering slight resistance, it is true, but opposing that slight resistance continuously, so that at last it amounted to a great deal. A step taken meant no advance toward easier steps. The treadmill of forest travel, changed only in outward............