noon
`` When Sandez left my cabin to go on his way south , the weather having cleared , I decided to take up his back trail in hope of finding some trace of his partner , and thus getting a possible clue to the location of the mine . So I started out one clear , cold day , with my dog for guide and company . `` I knew the general direction that the two partners traveled , for their trail was not lost until they had gone some twenty miles northwest of my cabin . I made fast time over the frozen snow on my skis , until by noon I had covered nigh onto fifteen miles . The dog was trotting along ahead of me when suddenly he disappeared into a deep gulch . `` In a second or two he set up a howl long-drawn-out and I knew then that he had found the quarry . I discovered the body of the man under some thick bushes at the bottom of the gulch .