George Tracy Marsh

“ Due to the wind there was as yet little snow on the trail over the bay ice and the freshened dogs, with lowered heads, swung up the coast at a trot. All day, with but short respite, men and dogs battled on against the norther. The mouth of the Little Salmon was the goal Marcel had set for himself—the river valley from which they would cut overland behind the gray cape, to the north coast. Forty miles away it lay—forty cruel miles of the torturing beat of shotlike snow in the faces of men and dogs, forty miles of endless pull and drag for the iron thews of Fleur and the whelps of the wolf. ”

“ With the sunrise the wind had increased and the heartsick Marcel groaned at the strength-sapping floundering in breast-high drifts which faced his devoted dogs, when he needed them fresh for the race up the sea ice of the coast beyond. Before he slept he had weighed the toil of ten miles of drift-barred short cut across the cape against the alternative of doubling the headland on the ice. He had decided that no men or dogs could face the maelstrom of wind and snow which churned around the cape’s bald buttresses, no strength force its way, no endurance prevail against it. ”

“ At times, when the force of the snow swirls sucked their very breath, men and dogs threw themselves panting on the snow, until, with wind regained, they could go on again. Often plunging to their collars in the new snow, the huskies traveled solely by leaps, until, stalled nose-deep, tangled in traces and held by the drag of the overturned sled, Marcel and the exhausted Hunter came to their rescue. ”