noon
It was a cold , cold job standing there on that rugged platform turning the windlass-crank . Long before it was fairly light we got to our posts , and lowered our men into the hole . The air was warmer down there ; but the work was harder , more difficult , more dangerous . At noon there was no sunshine , only a wan , ashen light that suffused the sky . A deathlike stillness lay on the valley , not a quiver or movement in leaf or blade . The snow was a shroud , smooth save where the funereal pines pricked through . In that intensity of cold , that shivering agony of desolation , it seemed as if nature was laughing at us -- the Cosmic Laugh .