The snow-drift rose in solid masses, whirled madly round for a few seconds, and then was caught by the blast and swept away like sheets of white flame.

The thermometer stood at 25 deg.

below zero, a temperature that was mild compared with what it usually had been of late, but the fierce wind abstracted heat from everything exposed to it so rapidly that neither man nor beast could face it for a moment.

Buzzby got a little bit of his chin frozen while he merely put his head out at the door of the hut to see how the weather looked; and Davie Summers had one of his fingers slightly frozen while in the act of carrying in one of the muskets that had been left outside by mistake.
As for the Esquimaux, they recked not of the weather.

Their snow-huts were warm, and their mouths were full, so like wise men and women they waited patiently within doors till the storm should blow itself out.