It was the death-like stillness of that most peculiar and dreary desolation which results from the total absence of animal existence.

The silence was so oppressive that it was with a feeling of relief he listened to the low, distant voices of the men as they paused ever and anon in their busy task to note and remark on the progress of their work.

In the intense cold of an Arctic night the sound of voices can be heard at a much greater distance than usual, and although the men were far off, and hummocks of ice intervened between them and Fred, their tones broke distinctly, though gently, on his ear.

Yet these sounds did not interrupt the unusual stillness.

They served rather to impress him more forcibly with the vastness of that tremendous solitude in the midst of which he stood.
Gradually his thoughts turned homeward, and he thought of the dear ones who circled round his own fireside, and perchance talked of him--of the various companions he had left behind, and the scenes of life and beauty where he used to wander.