noon
My lungs is made of whang leather , an ' besides , he ai n't no floor spitter -- I watched him in the office . Even if he was it would n't take mor 'n about a minute to break him of that . '' By nightfall Connie and ` Merican Joe had the outfit all ready for the trail , and the following morning they departed at daylight , with half of Ten Bow waving good-bye , as the great silver wolf-dog swung out onto the long snow trail at the head of the team . It was high noon , just two weeks from the day Connie Morgan and ` Merican Joe pulled out of Ten Bow , and the two halted their dogs on the summit of Bonnet Plume Pass and gazed out over the jumbled mass of peaks and valleys and ridges that lay to the eastward . The first leg of the long snow trail , from Ten Bow to Dawson , had been covered over a well-travelled trail with road houses at convenient intervals . Over this trail with Connie 's team of seven big malamutes , headed by the great ruffed wolf-dog , they had averaged forty miles a day . At Dawson they outfitted for the trip to Fort Norman , a distance of about five hundred miles .