They could hardly have fared worse.

At their backs rose a perpendicular wall of rock, and Perrault and Francois were compelled to make their fire and spread their sleeping robes on the ice of the lake itself.

The tent they had discarded at Dyea in order to travel light.
A few sticks of driftwood furnished them with a fire that thawed down through the ice and left them to eat supper in the dark.
Close in under the sheltering rock Buck made his nest.

So snug and warm was it, that he was loath to leave it when Francois distributed the fish which he had first thawed over the fire.

But when Buck finished his ration and returned, he found his nest occupied.