midnight
The stars began to glow white and metallic , and from far in the North there came faintly a crisping moaning sound , like steel sleigh-runners running over frosty snow -- the mysterious monotone of the Northern Lights . After that it grew steadily and swiftly colder . To-night Gray Wolf did not compass herself by the direction of the wind . She followed like a sneaking shadow over the trail Pierre Radisson had made , and when Kazan heard her again , long after midnight , he lay with , his head erect , and his body rigid , save for a curious twitching of his muscles . There was a new note in Gray Wolf 's voice , a wailing note in which there was more than the mate-call . It was The Message . And at the sound of it Kazan rose from out of his silence and his fear , and with his head turned straight up to the sky he howled as the wild dogs of the North howl before the tepees of masters who are newly dead .