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He sighed and shook his head "It isn’t me, normally," he said "Maybe I’m just tired"

"Then let’s sleep," Jim said

Merritt nodded "Then up at dawn, and on the river all day We’ll get there, Jack, just you see"

Jack smiled as he turned away, but that expression soon dropped from his face He left the fire and ventured into the woods, stoh the snow that would likely be much deeper very soon He needed to relieve hi the camp He scanned between the trees, sniffed the air, and closed his eyes as he tried to sense the thing that was following him

But if it did follow, it remained at a distance

They spent the next day on the river, but by the tiain to eat and dry their clothes around a fire, Merritt and Jier so confident The river was perhaps a mile wide in places, and the farther they paddled with the flow, the round together, and the river had a new sound, like the gru asleep

They ca past them, but Jack vowed that from now on they would remain on the water until they reached Dawson He reckoned it wasit before the river ground to a halt completely…

Well, maybe they’d be lucky But even Ji into the fire and clasping their coffee s Ice built up on their stubble and eyelashes, and the cold seemed to leach heat even fro, Jack barely had need to steer

"That way!" Merritt said, pointing ahead and to the left Jack saw the clear channel and the sharp, raised chunks of ice guided theed the water All around the ice masses, and here and there Jack could still hear the coed completely now, and he feared their ti when there was room between ice chunks to dip the oars When there was not roo

"Of course we’ll get there," Jack said "There’s just no saying when"

The great ice chunks hid the banks of the river fro theether, freezing, water splashing up only to becoli chunks, but more often it was sian, which limited their vision even more

Since that tin of the wolf But Jack could no longer believe that he was alone in this vast wilderness What that feeling meant he had no idea, but he had yet to share it with the other two men Jim, a teacher, would likely think him foolish And he feared that Merritt would think him mad

And perhaps he was Ever since Dyea, the feeling had been growing that so hi the horizon, the river slowedtherew narrower and less common Still they moved forward, but at a ed ice Clumps of snow fell into the craft, and Jim scooped them up and tossed them back over the side Ice cakes pressed into the boat to port and starboard, and several ti of timber as ier needed to bail, because most of the water in the Yukon Belle had frozen

"Stuck fast," Merritt said at last He did not turn around to look back at Jack, and neither did Jim look up Jack could blame neither of them On the contrary, he had respected their enthusias the same if it were not for the wolf

A sense of foreboding hung over hi," Jack said "Maybe it’s just this part of the river Perhaps it’s just a bottleneck"

This tilanced back

Half an hour later, with a deafening grinding sound that set Jack’s teeth vibrating, the river led up from beneath the floes, and their little boat found itself a fast channel again

"To Dawson, boys!" Jack shouted, whooping and waving his hat in the air He quickly replaced it when his ears grew nuh he knew that this was but a brief respite--they would not reach Dawson this side of winter--he suddenly felt a rush of confidence once again So what if they did have to winter somewhere around here? This was part of the adventure he had vowed to give hi it drift by--

To his left, across the layers of ice and snow, so dark one

Hiding

There was a tributary called the Stewart, close to Upper Island and barely seventy ed with the Yukon, the ice floes piled together and caused a jam that quickly turned as solid as land Their tied to haul the Yukon Belle up onto the ice before she was crushed, and then ca the craft onto the snow-blanketed riverbank There was no shelter out here on the ice, and if fate dictated that they had to build their own hut for the winter, then they would have to do so immediately, and use the wood from the boat as a start The air was colder than ever, and Jack knew aWhen it grew even colder, spit would freeze in the air, they would lose the use of their fingers, and then they would die

The boat was heavy, weighed doith their supplies and the ice that had frozen around the, it took some time to reach land Luckily they had drifted close to the bank before the ice trapped the arrived, they were ashore They collapsed close to the boat and built a fire, Jack gasping a silent prayer of thanks when the first dancing flaination back to the first people, who needed fire for war at bay the cold, the darkness, and predators that would coht He had lived on the road, slept in ditches and railway cars, and gone hungry many times, but despite that Jack was like ht and heat, food and water, all of it available virtually on demand The daily lives of those first people, cave dwellers and savage hunters, was difficult to conte, but also an obstacle thrown up by the advances of civilization