noon
Mingled with this rattle and the grinding song of the sleigh was the leader 's `` gruff ! gruff ! '' as he blew the congealed snow from his nose . Camp was made at noon outside an immense ravine which Rex knew by hearsay to be the great cañon of the Klondike . After an hour 's rest and a good meal they entered it , finding a precipitous-sided gorge of stupendous size and beauty . The gigantic gray walls , seamed and full of wide cracks , sloped upward , forming an almost complete arch overhead that admitted a dull glow of light to mingle with the white sheen of the ice below . Great icicles hung by thousands from the rock-crevices , while eternal drippings through the cavern-like roof had formed immense ice columns resembling unsmoothed marble pillars .