noon
Spur Mountain is not really a mountain at all . It is a long sparsely timbered ridge only about seven hundred feet in height that protrudes into the valley of the Ten Bow , for all the world like a giant spur . The creek doubles sharply around the point of the spur which slants upward to a deep notch or pass in the range that separates the Ten Bow from the valley of the Tanana . It was past noon when Connie Morgan swung his dogs from the creek-bed and headed back along the base of the spur toward the main range . He had covered the fifteen miles slowly , being forced almost constantly to break trail ahead of the dogs through the new-fallen snow . He turned into a patch of timber that slanted obliquely upward to the crest of the ridge , and working his outfit halfway to the top , pitched his tent on a narrow ledge or shoulder , protected from every direction by the ridge itself , and by the thick spruce timber . The early darkness had settled when he finished making camp and as he ate his supper he watched the stars appear one by one in the heavens .