three in the morning
On the next day Koona went , and but five of them remained : Joe , too far gone to be malignant ; Pike , crippled and limping , only half conscious and not conscious enough longer to malinger ; Sol-leks , the one-eyed , still faithful to the toil of trace and trail , and mournful in that he had so little strength with which to pull ; Teek , who had not travelled so far that winter and who was now beaten more than the others because he was fresher ; and Buck , still at the head of the team , but no longer enforcing discipline or striving to enforce it , blind with weakness half the time and keeping the trail by the loom of it and by the dim feel of his feet . It was beautiful spring weather , but neither dogs nor humans were aware of it . Each day the sun rose earlier and set later . It was dawn by three in the morning , and twilight lingered till nine at night . The whole long day was a blaze of sunshine . The ghostly winter silence had given way to the great spring murmur of awakening life . This murmur arose from all the land , fraught with the joy of living .