The thermometer registered forty-eight below when Britton and Lessari mushed out of the North Samson valley at sunrise. The Indian, now partly sobered and conscious that he had sold a well-guarded secret of his tribe, promptly proceeded to efface himself despite the inducements Britton offered him to act in the capacity of guide, so that the two travelled alone.
As they advanced upon the lonely trail which snaked northward to where the Klondike's source was somewhere hidden in unknown hills, the atmosphere grew keener with intense cold. A merciless, cutting frost fell in fine showers till the two men were covered with a hoary coating which scintillated like glaring tinsel. The icy powder stopped their ears and choked their nostrils, chilling every breath they took.
Lessari unfitted by his natural temperament for such a climate as the Yukon, had always found his respiration labored in winter, and, since he had contracted a severe cold from his soaking in Lake Bennett, his plight was now worse than ever.
Owing to the pressure on his chest he was forced to breathe through the open mouth. Britton pleaded with him not to do this, but the finer fibred Corsican could not endure the strain on his nasal passages and relapsed into breathing between parted lips. As a result, he soon chilled his lungs and began to cough with a dry, hacking sound which Rex heard with foreboding dread.
The mercury dropped lower with every mile they mushed. Icicles formed on their eyebrows, noses and chins, while thin films of ice encased their cheeks, prohibiting any speech.
A thickness of hoar-frost decorated the loaded sled, and the hairy backs of the five dogs were white with it. At intervals they shook themselves roughly in the harness, sending ice particles flying in all directions.
Mingled with this rattle and the grinding song of the sleigh was the leader's "gruff! gruff!" as he blew the congealed snow from his nose.
Camp was made at noon outside an immense ravine which Rex knew by hearsay to be the great cañon of the Klondike. After an hour's rest and a good meal they entered it, finding a precipitous-sided gorge of stupendous size and beauty.
The gigantic gray walls, seamed and full of wide cracks, sloped upward, forming an almost complete arch overhead that admitted a dull glow of light to mingle with the white sheen of the ice below. Great icicles hung by thousands from the rock-crevices, while eternal drippings through the cavern-like roof had formed immense ice columns resembling unsmoothed marble pillars.
The scene before Britton and Lessari looked like a weird, uncanny ice forest full of frozen trunks and clammy, oozy nooks where underworld spirits and grotesque goblins might be expected to reside. The hollow booming of the mighty river, straining in its imprisonment, filled the whole place with a resounding roar, and the force of the fettered torrent shook the coated cave walls till the icicles fell and scattered their rainbow hues upon the floor.