No breath of wind blew.

Nor did the sap move in the hearts of the spruce trees that forested the river banks on either hand.

The trees, burdened with the last infinitesimal pennyweight of snow their branches could hold, stood in absolute petrifaction.

The slightest tremor would have dislodged the snow, and no snow was dislodged.

The sled was the one point of life and motion in the midst of the solemn quietude, and the harsh churn of its runners but emphasized the silence through which it moved.
It was a dead world, and furthermore, a gray world.