The weather was sharp and clear; there was no moisture in the atmosphere, no fog nor haze; yet the sky was a gray pall.

The reason for this was that, though there was no cloud in the sky to dim the brightness of day, there was no sun to give brightness.

Far to the south the sun climbed steadily to meridian, but between it and the frozen Yukon intervened the bulge of the earth.

The Yukon lay in a night shadow, and the day itself was in reality a long twilight-light.

At a quarter before twelve, where a wide bend of the river gave a long vista south, the sun showed its upper rim above the sky-line.