noon
A haze of smoke hung over the clustering shacks , lights still blinked among them , and already the nipping air was filled with sounds of activity . Then the locomotive shrieked and he turned his face toward the lonely white hills as the cars moved forward with a jerk . It was bitterly cold , though he lay down out of the wind behind the load of rails , where hot cinders rattled about him and now and then stung his face . At noon the train stopped . Alighting with cramped limbs , Prescott saw that the rails went no farther . A few shacks stood forlornly upon the hillside , a frozen river wound like a white riband through the gorge beneath , and ahead lay a sharply rising waste of rock and snow . His path led across it , and after a word or two with the men on the line he began his journey , breaking through the thin , frozen crust .