Crickets sang in the nights, and in the days all manner of creeping, crawling things rustled forth into the sun.

Partridges and woodpeckers were booming and knocking in the forest.

Squirrels were chattering, birds singing, and overhead honked the wild-fowl driving up from the south in cunning wedges that split the air.
From every hill slope came the trickle of running water, the music of unseen fountains.

All things were thawing, bending, snapping.

The Yukon was straining to break loose the ice that bound it down.