"I know," Hager said. "But the team needs a little rest. They've had a lot of heavy hauling, and there's still a distance to go."
Cahill nodded miserably, shivering. He burrowed into the furs, still shivering, breathing rapidly through parted lips. Slowly the chill left him. His eyes clouded again. Then his lids fell, and he dozed once more.
Hager brewed tea and drank it slowly, squatting before the fire. Then he packed and lighted his pipe. He stared into the flames with narrowed eyes, seeing his dreams pictured there. They were pleasant dreams.
Hager remained in the ravine until the supply of wood was gone. Then he fastened the dogs back into their traces and resumed his position behind the sled. With shouts and cracks of the whip, he guided the animals out of the ravine, following the downward slope of the land this time.
The snow stopped falling after a while, but the wind and the cold increased. The cold hung on the air like an enormous, transparent weight. Somehow it seemed to give an impossible crystalline purity to the snow blanketing the trees and the land. In doing so, it emphasized and magnified its very presence. It made itself something almost alive and sentient, icily malignant, overbearing, utterly cruel and without mercy.
Hager cursed the cold with redoubled venom. Despite the thickness of his fur parka and the layers of clothing beneath the cold seemed to soak into him like an all-penetrating liquid. He had to wave his arms and stamp his feet to fight back a creeping numbness.
ut the terrible chill could not subdue the flame of purpose burning in Hager's mind. That part of him remained keenly alert. The sled was moving in the direction of the stream, and he was careful to judge the distance carefully. He didn't want to approach too close. At just the right moment he turned the sled at angle back toward the way from which it had come. It was his plan to keep zigzagging, approaching the stream and then retreating, always at a tangent. A great deal of time would be consumed in this way, with very little actual forward progress toward Moose Gulch.
He repeated this maneuver again and again. Cahill roused a few times to inquire weakly about their progress. Always Hager gave the same answer.