Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen waterway.

The trees had beenstripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to lean towardseach other, black and ominous, in the fading light.

A vast silence reigned over the land. Theland itself was a desolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of itwas not even that of sadness.

There was a hint in it of laughter, but of a laughter moreterrible than any sadness-a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the sphinx, alaughter cold as the frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility.

It was the masterfuland incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort oflife.

It was the Wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild