In truth, it was not snow, but frost.
The weather was warm, as well, barely twenty below zero, and the two men, with raised ear-flaps and dangling mittens, sweated as they toiled.

They failed to make Forty Mile that night, and when they passed that camp next day Daylight paused only long enough to get the mail and additional grub.

On the afternoon of the following day they camped at the mouth of the Klondike River.

Not a soul had they encountered since Forty Mile, and they had made their own trail.

As yet, that winter, no one had travelled the river south of Forty Mile, and, for that matter, the whole winter through they might be the only ones to travel it.