noon
Each day thereafter the sun was warmer , and with its increasing promise of the final `` break-up '' and slush snows , Upso-Gee 's taciturnity and anxiety grew apace . He was little more talkative than the painted devil chaser on the blackened canvas of his tepee , but he gave David to understand that he would have a hard time getting back with his dogs and sledge from Fond du Lac if the thaw came earlier than he had anticipated . David marvelled at the old warrior 's endurance , and especially when they crossed the forty miles of ice on Wollaston Lake between dawn and darkness . At high noon the snow was beginning to soften on the sunny slopes even then , and by the time they reached the Porcupine , Snow Fox was chanting his despairing prayer nightly before that grinning thing on his tepee . `` Swas-tao -LRB- the thaw -RRB- she kam dam ' queek , '' he said to David , grimacing his old face to express other things which he could not say in English . And it did . Four days later , when they reached Fond du Lac , there was water underfoot in places , and Upso-Gee turned back on the home trail within an hour .