The story begins with the unnamed main character, simply referred to as “the man,” on the Yukon trail. He is in the middle of a cold and isolated setting. The ground is covered in snow, and it is −75 degrees F. The man is a newcomer to the Yukon and is traveling alone except for his dog. They are heading to a camp where the man will join his companions. The man thinks happily of the lunch he carries with him and looks forward to finding his friends that night. He is not concerned about the cold, even as ice has frozen his lips together. The dog, on the other hand, senses the danger in the extreme cold. It expects the man to find shelter or build a fire. The omniscient narrator also comments on the danger in the man’s narrow perspective and lack of understanding.

The man hikes along a frozen creek, noticing areas where water has run down into the ice, making pools that could get him very wet if he fell through. The man knows that wet feet would cause trouble and delay his journey, but he does not fully consider the danger of wet feet. Nonetheless, he is cautious as he walks along the ice. At one point, he forces his dog to go ahead over some dangerous ice and it falls through. The dog climbs out, and the water immediately freezes on its legs and paws. The dog bites the ice off, and the man helps it clear its paws.

By noon, the man is pleased with his progress. He sits down and tries to eat his lunch but is shocked to discover how numb his hands have become and that his mouth has frozen over too much for him to eat. He realizes that he should build a fire. The man remembers how “a man from Sulphur Creek” had warned him about the cold but he had dismissed the danger. He slowly builds a fire and eats lunch. After he smokes a pipe, he sets off again. The dog enjoys the warm fire and is reluctant to leave it. The dog’s instinct tells it that they should not travel in the cold but should find shelter. 

The man and the dog continue up the creek until the man falls in a pool, ending up soaked to his knees. He is angry, but not frightened. He must build a fire to dry out his socks and moccasins. Slowly, he builds a fire with grass, bark, and larger and larger sticks. The narrator explains that a man must warm up quickly if his feet are wet when the temperature is this low. The man knows this as well, since he has been told so by the old man on Sulphur Creek. Additionally, he has lost all feeling in his feet and his hands are going numb. Now that he has stopped walking, his blood itself feels the cold. He feels it sinking away from his hands, feet, and skin to hide from the cold. He is surprised by how quickly his hands grow numb, and his face freezes, but the man is confident in his growing fire. He plans to warm his moccasins and feet there. He thinks back to the old man on Sulphur Creek and laughs at his warning that no one should travel alone when it is that cold. He is confident that he has saved himself.

However, disaster strikes. The man has built his fire under a tree with branches covered with snow. When he pulls sticks free, he dislodges some of the snow. In a cascading effect, snow falls from all the branches down onto his fire. It puts the fire out. The man finally begins to realize that he is in real danger. He wonders if he should have had a companion on the trip who could have built a second fire, but he must try to build another fire himself. He makes a pile of dry grass, sticks, and branches in an open space. The dog watches anxiously, depending on the man to provide a fire. The man tries to find his piece of tree bark but can’t. He realizes that his feet are freezing and beats his hands until he has feeling enough to find his bark. He is jealous of the dog’s warm fur as he struggles to light a match. But his hands are too numb to pull off a match and he drops them all in the snow. He even tries to light one with his teeth, but he coughs and drops it in the snow.

The man becomes more desperate. He burns all seventy matches at once. He tries to light the tree bark and badly burns his hands. He finally lights the bark and tries to build up the fire, using his teeth as well as his hands. But he accidentally scatters the fire, and it goes out. The man sees the dog looking at him uneasily. He decides he must kill the dog and use its warm body to defrost his hands. He calls the dog, but the dog hears a strange, frightened tone in his voice and won’t obey. He crawls toward the dog, but it backs away. The man forces himself to stand up and this reassures the dog enough that the man can grab it with his arms because his hands are too frozen. He realizes that his hands are too frozen to kill the dog anyway. Even beating his hands for five minutes does not bring feeling back. 

The man knows now that his life is in danger. In terror, he runs up the creek bed with the dog following. He oscillates between hope that he can somehow run to the camp and the knowledge that he is too frozen to make it. He cannot even feel his feet as he runs. He falls and feels warm and comfortable, although he has lost feeling in his face as well. He is frightened by this and runs again but falls a second time. He is angered by the dog’s apparent warmth and yells at it, then runs again. This time he only makes it a hundred feet before he falls. At this point, the man accepts his coming death. He imagines himself as one of “the boys,” coming down the trail and finding his own body in the snow. In his mind, the man tells the old man in Sulphur Creek that he was right. He falls into a peaceful sleep as he freezes to death. The dog stays for a while, confused that he is sitting in the snow without making a fire. Eventually it realizes the man is dead and heads up the trail alone, in search of other humans who can provide food and warmth.

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