Muck! Always muck! It seemed to her amazing that he should continue this heartbreaking quest. Much as she had prized the things that money could buy, she began to hate it now. As they penetrated farther North, so the conditions grew more appalling. No longer the sun mounted the horizon. Night and day were much the same thing--a mysterious luminiferousness, merging into the fantastic lights of the great Aurora Borealis, that occasionally leapt across the Northern sky in spectrumatic beauty, to flicker and die, and rise again. Day after day the journey went on. The ice being now strong, they skimmed across rivers and creeks, raising the snow in clouds and "switchbacking" over hummocks in a fashion that under other conditions might have been exhilarating. Then came the monotonous digging and washing, with its inevitable unsuccessful issue. Striking the Yukon River at the "flats"--where it is reputed to be thirty miles wide--they followed its course for three weary days, until Fort Yukon was passed and the junction of the Chandalar River was made. It was while negotiating the rough surface of Chandalar that the "terror of the North" came down. Jim heard it coming before Angela was aware of any unusual sound. For two days there had been no wind, saving a light zephyr that laid its bitter finger on the exposed flesh. Now a legion of devils were preparing for attack. A sound like unto a human sigh broke the silence. It died away and came again, a little stronger. Immediately Jim pulled the "leader" dog to the lift and cracked the long whip over the team. "Mush, darn you, mush!" "What's that?" inquired Angela, as an uncanny groaning met her ears. "The wind. Gee, but she's going to raise the dead!" The high bank loomed up and the sled turned a half-circle and came close under a protecting bluff. Jim tied the team to a tree and ran forward to Angela. She was standing terror-stricken at the sound of the approaching monster. Behind her was a huge snow-drift. He pointed to the white mass, and shouted that his voice might be heard above the Niagara of sound. "We'll sure freeze stiff unless we git inside that--hurry!" They bored their way into the crisp snow, like dogs in a rabbit-hole. There was scarcely need to urge Angela to use her strength. The noise of the approaching blizzard was like to fifty thousand shrieking devils. The little light that remained was suddenly blotted out. At nearly a hundred miles an hour the solid mass of wind and snow came roaring down from the mountains. The whole earth seemed to reel under the impact. Inside the sheltering snow mass it was cold enough, but outside nothing human could live. The dogs, familiar with this phenomenon of the higher latitudes, had crawled into the snow and would lie there until the noise subsided.