Beneath him, in every direction were the cabins of men.

But not many men were visible.

A blanket of smoke filled the valleys and turned the gray day to melancholy twilight.

Smoke arose from a thousand holes in the snow, where, deep down on bed-rock, in the frozen muck and gravel, men crept and scratched and dug, and ever built more fires to break the grip of the frost.

Here and there, where new shafts were starting, these fires flamed redly.