English Audiobook Narration
Description
Vocal Characteristics
Language
EnglishVoice Age
Middle Aged (35-54)Accents
North American (General)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
dark spruce forest frowned on either side of the frozen waterway. The trees have been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to lean toward each other. Black and ominous, and the fading light. A vast silence reigned over the land. The land itself was a desolation, lifeless without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness. There was a hint in it of laughter, but if a laughter more terrible than any sadness, a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the sphinx. A laughter cold is the frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility. It was the masterful and in communicable wisdom of eternity, laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was the wild, the savage, frozen hearted northland wild. But there was life abroad in the land, and defiant Down the frozen waterway toiled a string of wolfish dogs. Their bristly fur was rimmed with frost. Their breath froze in the air as it left their mouths spouting forth and spume of vapor that settled upon the hair of their bodies and formed into crystals of frost. Leather harness was on the dog, and leather traces attached them to a sled which dragged along behind. The sled was without runners. It was made of stout birch bark, and it's full surface rested on the snow. The front end of the sled was turned up like a scroll in order to force down and under the bore of soft snow that surged like a wave before it on the sleds on the sled securely lashed was a long and narrow oblong box there were other things on the sled blankets, an ax and a coffee pot and frying pan, but prominent, occupying most of the space was the long and narrow oblong box. They traveled on without speech, saving their breath for the work of their bodies. On every side was the silence pressing upon them with a tangible presence. It affected their minds as the many atmospheres of deep water affect the body of a diver. It crushed them with the weight of unending vastness and unalterable decree. It crushed them into the remotest recesses of their own minds, pressing out of them like juices from the grape, all the false or doors and exaltation of undue self values of the human soul until they perceived themselves finite and small specks and motes moving with weak cunning and little wisdom, admits the play and interplay of the great blind elements and forces. An hour went by, and a second hour the pale light of the short, sunless day was beginning to fade. When a faint far cry arose on the still air it soared upward with a swift rush until it reached its topmost note where it persisted, palpitating and tense, and then slowly died away. It might have been a lost soul whaling. Had it not been invested with a certain sad fierceness and hungry eagerness. The front man turned his head until his eyes met the eyes of the man behind, and then across the narrow oblong box each nodded to the other. The final section. Take two. A second cry arose, piercing the silence with a needle like shrillness. Both men located the sound it was to the rear, somewhere in the snow expanse. They had just traveled a third, and answering cry arose also to the rear and to the left of the second cry. They're after us, Bill! Said the man in the front. His voice sounded hoarse and unreal, and he had spoken with apparent effort. Meat is scarce answer to his comrade. I ain't seen a rabbit sign for days thereafter. They spoke no more, though their ears were keen for the hunting cries that continued to rise behind them. At the fall of darkness they swung the dogs into the cluster of spruce trees on the edge of the waterway and made camp. The coffin at the side of the fire served for the seat and table. The wolf dogs clustered on the far side of the fire, snarled and bickered among themselves, but events no inclination to stray off into the darkness