When he tried to step forward his feet clapped together like solid blocks of ice. Very distantly, it seemed to him, he could make out a little glow of red and feel a breath of warmness. Going down on his hands and knees, he crawled towards it. It was coming to meet him; they had met. He lay down beside the redness and his panic left him.
Then he became conscious that it was hurting him and he commenced to hate it. In struggling to get away from it, he found that he could move more freely. Sensation had come into his hands; raising them he felt his eyes. His great terror was not of death, but that he should be forever sightless. He ran his fingers across his eyes and found that they were covered with flesh—that his eyelids were frozen together. With his two hands he forced them apart, and gazed about him. Wherever he looked there was endless space with nothing to deter him, stretching away on every side. The moon, in her last quarter, was barely visible—a mere shadow of silver in the sky; so indistinct was his vision, that it seemed to him as though he were looking at the image of the firmament reflected in water, rather than at the stars themselves. Yet, in the certain renewal of his sight, there came to him a gladness which he had not known for many a day.
When he turned toward the fire, he perceived the cause of his mishap: he had overslept himself and it was nearly out. By the way in which it was scattered abroad and the smouldering of the fur which was about his throat and arms, he guessed that in his blindness and instinctive desire for warmth, he had thrown himself upon its ashes. Having gathered what remained of it together, he flung on more fuel and set to work to chafe his extremities, restoring circulation. He was too chilled to think of attempting sleep again that night: so, when his limbs were sufficiently thawed out, he renewed his journey.
The atmosphere was wonderfully clear, but there was in the air a sense of evil and foreboding. Even the dogs seemed to be aware of it, for as they ran, turning their heads from side to side to see which way the whip was coming that they might dodge it, there was a look of foreknowledge and terror in their eyes which warned Granger.
As the dawn was spreading, he was startled by a long-drawn sigh, which travelled from horizon to horizon and died out. The dogs heard it, and sitting down abruptly in their tracks nearly overturned the sled. Gazing away to the northward, he saw a shadowy cloud arise, whirl and drift languidly over the tree-tops and fall back again out of sight. He lashed at the huskies, and with difficulty set them going. But the sled drew heavily, as though it were being dragged through sand, for the snow was gritty as the seashore: so intense was the cold that all slipperiness had gone out of it. He fastened a line to the load and went on ahead, breaking the trail and hauling with all his strength.
Before long the sigh was heard again; but this time it came nearer, and columns of white smoke rose up and danced in the river-bed. Then he knew that he was in for a poudre day—the day which of all others the winter voyageur holds in most dread. While such weather lasts, even the hardiest traveller will refuse to leave his fire; for he knows that before long every land-mark will be blotted out, that his very dogs will refuse to obey him, and that to-morrow, when the wind has dropped and the snow has settled, the chances are that the sun will find him with a quiet face turned upward to the sky, immobile and statuesque as if carved from Parian marble.
Leaving Spurling's trail, he ascended the bank and worked along by the forest's edge, that so he might gain shelter. With every fresh puff of breath from the north, the coiling snakes of snow grew larger, writhing across the tree-tops and pouring tumultuously into the river-bed, where they rioted and fought till the day grew dark and it was difficult to see the next step. Respiration became painful, but Granger was determined not to halt, for this was one of the accidents which would help him to come up with Spurling. Feeling his way from tree to tree, he struggled on. His head became dizzy with the effort. His body, for all its coldness, broke out into a chilly sweat. He was invaded by a terrible inertia, so that he was half-minded to lie down and go to sleep; but the thought that Spurling had halted somewhere, perhaps only twenty miles ahead, and was losing time, drew him on. Presently his dogs sat down again, lifting their voices above the storm in a dismal wailing.
He cut their traces and went forward, dragging the sled himself. They followed him a few paces behind, slinking through the darkness with their heads down and their tails between their legs. They reminded him of the timber-wolf on the Forbidden River; there were times when, catching a partial glimpse of them, he could have sworn that they had been joined by a third.
By midday the wind died down, the atmosphere began to clear and the snow to settle. Returning to the river he sought in vain for Spurling's tracks; either he had passed him in the blackness or they had been obliterated. He would know the truth in the next six hours for, if he were still ahead, he would come to his abandoned camp.
Towards sunset he halted and lit a fire; he intended to travel through the night and was in need of rest. He had fed his huskies and was stooping above the flames, cooking himself some bacon, when he raised his eyes to the west. For a minute he crouched, gazing with the fascination of horror at what he saw taking place apparently not more than fifty yards away, but with such clearness that it might not have been more than ten paces. Where ten seconds before there had been nothing in view but the straight length of river and the snow-capped forest, dripping with icicles, there was now, hanging above the trees face-downwards, anchored to the sky by crimson threads, the inverted image of a portage, leading up from the right-hand bank of a river, hedged in on either side with a row of crosses which marked graves of bygone voyageurs. Midway in the path was a little cabin, which had been set up for the shelter of bestormed travellers by employees of the Hudson Bay. Granger recognised the place; it was Dead Rat Portage, and must be at least fifteen miles from where he was now standing and ten from God's Voice.