noon
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 . But it did not rise perpendicularly . Instead , it rose on a slant , so that by high noon it had barely lifted its lower rim clear of the horizon . It was a dim , wan sun . There was no heat to its rays , and a man could gaze squarely into the full orb of it without hurt to his eyes . No sooner had it reached meridian than it began its slant back beneath the horizon , and at quarter past twelve the earth threw its shadow again over the land .