There was an unwonted absence of animal life.

At rare intervals they chanced upon the trail of a snowshoe rabbit or an ermine; but in the main it seemed that all life had fled the land.

It was a condition not unknown to them, for in all their experience, at one time or another, they had travelled one year through a region teeming with game, where, a year or two or three years later, no game at all would be found.
Gold they found on the bars, but not in paying quantities.

Elijah, while on a hunt for moose fifty miles away, had panned the surface gravel of a large creek and found good colors.

They harnessed their dogs, and with light outfits sledded to the place.