Once they lost the trail and were seized with despair, but, searching anxiously, they found it again.
At last a pale, elusive light appeared amid the snow ahead, and they watched it with keen satisfaction as it grew clearer.

When it had changed to a strong yellow glow, they passed a broken white barrier which Blake supposed was a ruined stockade, and the hazy mass of a building showed against the snow.

Then there was a loud barking of dogs, and while they sought for the door a stream of light suddenly shone out, with a man's dark figure in the midst of it.
The next minute they entered the house, and Harding, lurching forward across the floor of a large room, clutched at a table and then fell with a crash into a chair.

After the extreme cold outside, the air was suffocatingly hot.

Overcome by the change and pain, Harding leaned back with flushed face and half-closed eyes, while his companions stood still, with the snow glistening on their ragged furs.
The man shut the door before he turned to them.
"A rough night," he said calmly.