THE CRISIS
It was spring on the Yukon--the radiant, glorious spring that is
sandwiched between the intense winter and the dank, enervating summer.
Birds sang in the woods, their liquid voices accompanied by the deep noise
of the river, belching its millions of tons of ice into the Bering Sea. In
the lower valleys the snow had vanished, and the rich green carpet of the
earth shimmered in the clear sunlight.
South of Fort Yukon Angela and Jim were threading their way through a
pine-forest. Both carried packs on their backs, for the sled had been
discarded but a few days before, having served them faithfully for a
hundred-odd miles.
Jim found a small clearing and slung the huge pack from his shoulders.
Angela discarded her smaller pack and came to help him rig up the tent.
"Better than the winter, eh?" he queried, as an inquisitive bird came and
hopped around them.
"In many ways, but the winter's wonderful enough when one has grown
acclimatized. I shall never forget those mountains and the glory of the
sunset.... Are we far from Dawson?"
"Two hundred miles or so."
"And will the food last out?"
That was the crucial question. Until the river traffic began the purchase
of food was almost an impossibility. She saw Jim's face tighten, as it had
tightened every time she had broached the subject. A week before he had
insisted that the remaining food be equally divided, since they now both
engaged in the search for gold--that eternally elusive mineral that seemed
as far away as ever. The beans and flour and canned meat had been duly
apportioned, and placed in their respective sacks. When they separated for
the day each took his food with him, cooking it in primitive fashion in
the open.
For the last few days Angela had been anxious about Jim. He seemed to have
changed in an extraordinary manner. His cheeks were thinner and his eyes
looked dead. Yet he was merry enough when at nights they forgathered
around the fire and told their respective tales of vain searching.
She was frying some beans over the fire when he rose and pointed back
through the wood.
"I guess I'll jest go along and prospect the lay of the land from the
hill," he said.
"But aren't you going to have something to eat?"
"Nope--not now. I ain't hungry. I'll be back again in no time."
She ate her meal reflectively. It was queer that he should want to go to
the hill, when but recently they had passed over it and had taken their
bearings from the ice-laden river that lay to the east! Despite his
assurance of excellent health she knew something was wrong with him. But
what?
A little later she followed the path he had taken. The thickly grown wood
was alive with spirit of spring. Small animals scampered underfoot, and
overhead a bird breathed forth its soul in incomparable song. She stopped
for a minute to listen to the latter--clear-throated as an English
nightingale--singing away as though winter and the stark desolation had
never been. A slight breeze moaned among the tree-tops, and woodland
scents were wafted to her nostrils. Adown the gale came the slanting rays
of the setting sun, red and wonderful and warm.
From near at hand came another sound--a noise as of one slashing at the
earth. Carefully she made her way in the direction of the noise, curious
as to its meaning. She peered round a tree, and saw something which took
her breath away. Jim was kneeling on the ground, hacking with his
jack-knife at the earth. Then from the excavated foot or so he took a
root, scraped it with the knife, and began to gnaw it like a dog. She had
heard of edible roots, on which half-starved Indians in the North managed
to subsist for long periods. But for Jim to do this.... Her brain reeled
at the sight. The significance of it dawned upon her. He was afraid of the
future. He knew the food could not last out, and was saving his rations
for the time of emergency. That was the meaning of those thinning cheeks
and the dead eyes. He was famished with hunger...!
With a choke she ran towards him, holding up her hands with horror. He
tried to hide the root he was chewing, but became aware that she had seen
it, and that she knew the true motive of his expedition.
"Jim, why, you're starving! Why didn't you tell me?"
He stood up and put the knife into his pocket.
"'Tain't as bad as all that," he said casually. "Gotta make that grub pan
out, somehow. I told you I was rough--an animal. Don't look so plumb
sober. I lived for a month on roots once...."
"Come back!" she cried imperiously. "Why didn't you tell me? I had a right
to know!"
He said nothing. There was nothing to be said. She didn't know what
starvation was really like, and he did. She led him back to the camp, her
face flushed and her eyes moist.
"Now sit down. I'm going to cook you a good meal, and you are going to eat
it. Where's your grub sack?"
His mouth closed down with a snap. If she saw the grub sack the whole
truth must come out, and he didn't want that.
"I've had my meal," he replied. "Don't trouble now. I ain't a bit hungry.
Them roots is sure wonderful when you git used----"
She shrugged her shoulders impatiently, and looked round for his kit.
Seeing it a few yards away she rose from her knees and made for it, but
his hand came out and stopped her.
"Angela," he said hoarsely. "We got days to go yet...."
She put his arm aside and reached the pile of kit. The sack in which his
food was carried was a white canvas one, easily distinguished from the
rest. She turned over one or two things and found it--flat and empty.
"Gone--all gone!"
She stood with it hanging from her fingers as a suspicion entered her
mind. Slowly she came to him, her bosom throbbing madly.
"What have you done with it?"
"I guess I've bin a bit too free with it."
"What have you done with it?" she reiterated.
"Wal, it's gone, and squealing won't help matters."
"Where has it gone?"
"Where does food usually go? See here, Angela--I'm right sorry about it
all. Maybe I'll shoot a bird to-morrow, and then I'll have a gormandizing
jag."
But the stratagem failed to have effect. She was thinking of the apparent
inexhaustibility of her own supply. Two nights before she had heard him go
from the tent, and the next morning the ring which he usually wore on his
finger was found in her sack. Moreover, the contents had seemed strangely
increased. She saw it all now. The bag slipped from her fingers and she
covered her face with her hands.
"I know!... I know now!" she burst out. "I've been eating your food as
well as my own. You have been replenishing my supply from your own sack.
All this time you've been famished with hunger, and you've let me go on
eating--living on your hunger. Oh, God! don't you see how mean I feel?"
Then her eyes flashed and her tone changed. "But you had no right to do
it. How dare you?"
"I guess I'd dare a lot of things for certain reasons. See here, you've
bin through a hell of a lot up here, but you've never suffered hunger, and
it wouldn't be good for you, I'm thinking. Cold and frostbite is one
thing, and hunger's another. There's nothin' like starvation to freeze up
your heart. It's like a red-hot iron inside, gittin' redder and redder....
Shootin' a starvin' dog's a mercy, I reckon."
"Is it any worse for me than you?"
"Yep."
With that dogmatic assertion he relapsed into silence. Angela flew to her
own small supply of food and produced the requisities for a good meal. The
mixture was soon spluttering over the fire, emitting odors almost
unendurable to the hungry, watching Jim. Angela turned it out on to a
plate.
"Come along," she said.
"I told you----"
She went to him and put her arm round him.
"If you've any regard for me--if you want to make me happy, eat that."
It was the first time she had ever displayed any real depth of feeling,
and it was like balm to him. But his obstinacy prevailed, for in the dish
was a normal day's ration for the two of them.
"Maybe you think we'll drop across food on trail, but we won't. There's
nothin' to be got until the first freighter comes up the river. Better
put it back."
She took her arm away and went to the dish.
"If you won't eat, I'll throw it away--I swear I will!"
"Angela!"
"It's your own maxim, your own teaching--share and share alike. I won't
recognize any other doctrine. It shall go to the birds unless...."
She meant what she said, and he knew it.
"All right--I'll eat," he mumbled.
Half an hour later, feeling a hundred per cent. better, he rose to his
feet and entered the tent, where Angela was busily engaged putting down
the blankets on improvised mattresses of gathered moss and young bracken.
"See," she said, "I've split up the food again. How long will it last if
eked out?"
He turned out one of the sacks and ran his eye over the contents.
"Two days, at a pinch."
"And how soon can we make Dawson?"
"A week, hard plugging."
"Then it looks as though the 'pinch' will have to be resorted to--and
expanded."
He saw she was smiling as she tucked his bottom blanket carefully under
the moss.
"When you put it that way we can make anything," he said. "If I had a
canoe we could push up the river a good deal faster than overland, but I
ain't got one--and that's the rub."
"Then we'll have to depend on luck."
"No friend o' mine. Luck don't cut much ice up here."
Angela shook her head. She had a slight suspicion that luck had not
entirely deserted them. Though the future seemed black and threatening,
were there not compensating elements? There were worse things than dying
in the wilderness with a "wild man."