In that event all would be lost. He urged the dogs on,
calling them by the names which he had heard Blake use, and
occasionally he sent the long lash of his whip curling over their
backs. The surface of the Coppermine was smooth and hard. Now and
then they came to stretches of glare ice and at these intervals
Philip rode behind Celie, staring back into the white mystery of
the night out of which they had come. It was so still that the
click, dick, click of the dogs' claws sounded like the swift beat
of tiny castanets on the ice. He could hear the panting breath of
the beasts. The whalebone runners of the sledge creaked with the
shrill protest of steel traveling over frozen snow. Beyond these
sounds there were no others, with, the exception of his own breath
and the beating of his own heart. Mile after mile of the
Coppermine dropped behind them. The last tree and the last fringe
of bushes disappeared, and to the east, the north, and the west
there was no break in the vast emptiness of the great Arctic
plain.
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