The Greater Power by Harold Bindloss — Read

A bitter frost had crept down from the snow-clad heights that shut the canyon in, and the roar of the river had fallen to a lower tone, when Nasmyth stood one morning shivering close by the door of his rude log shanty at the foot of the gully. The faint grey light was growing slightly clearer, and he could see the clustering spruces, in the hollow, gleam spectrally where their dark masses were streaked with delicate silver filigree. Across the river there was a dull glimmer from the wall of rock, which the freezing spray had covered with a glassy crust. Though it had not been long exposed to the nipping morning air, Nasmyth felt his damp deer-hide jacket slowly stiffening, and the edge of the sleeves, which had been wet through the day before, commenced to rasp his raw and swollen wrists.

He stood still for a minute or two listening to the river and stretching himself wearily, for his back and shoulders ached, and there was a distressful stiffness in most of his joints that had resulted from exposure, in spray-drenched clothing, to the stinging frost. This, however, did not greatly trouble him, since he had long realized that physical discomfort must be disregarded if the work was to be carried on. Men, for the most part, toil strenuously in that wild land. Indeed, it is only by the tensest effort of which flesh and blood are capable that the wilderness is broken to man's domination, for throughout much of it costly mechanical appliances have not as yet displaced well-hardened muscle.