It was my turn for silence.
"Does it die?" he reiterated. "You are a painter-man. Maybe you know."
"No, I do not know," I confessed.
"It is not life," he delivered himself dogmatically. "In life little
girl die or get well. Something happen in life. In picture nothing
happen. No, I do not understand pictures."
His disappointment was patent. It was his desire to understand all
things that white men understand, and here, in this matter, he failed.
I felt, also, that there was challenge in his attitude. He was bent
upon compelling me to show him the wisdom of pictures. Besides, he had
remarkable powers of visualization. I had long since learned this. He
visualized everything. He saw life in pictures, felt life in pictures,
generalized life in pictures; and yet he did not understand pictures
when seen through other men's eyes and expressed by those men with
color and line upon canvas.
"Pictures are bits of life," I said. "We paint life as we see it. For
instance, Charley, you are coming along the trail. It is night. You
see a cabin. The window is lighted. You look through the window for
one second, or for two seconds, you see something, and you go on your
way. You saw maybe a man writing a letter. You saw something without
beginning or end. Nothing happened. Yet it was a bit of life you saw.
You remember it afterward. It is like a picture in your memory. The
window is the frame of the picture."
I could see that he was interested, and I knew that as I spoke he had
looked through the window and seen the man writing the letter.
"There is a picture you have painted that I understand," he said. "It
is a true picture. It has much meaning. It is in your cabin at Dawson.
It is a faro table. There are men playing. It is a large game. The
limit is off."
"How do you know the limit is off?" I broke in excitedly, for here was
where my work could be tried out on an unbiassed judge who knew life
only, and not art, and who was a sheer master of reality. Also, I was
very proud of that particular piece of work. I had named it "The Last
Turn," and I believed it to be one of the best things I had ever done.
"There are no chips on the table," Sitka Charley explained. "The
men are playing with markers. That means the roof is the limit. One
man play yellow markers--maybe one yellow marker worth one thousand
dollars, maybe two thousand dollars. One man play red markers. Maybe
they are worth five hundred dollars, maybe one thousand dollars. It
is a very big game. Everybody play very high, up to the roof. How do
I know? You make the dealer with blood little bit warm in face." (I
was delighted.) "The lookout, you make him lean forward in his chair.
Why he lean forward? Why his face very much quiet? Why his eyes very
much bright? Why dealer warm with blood a little bit in the face? Why
all men very quiet?--the man with yellow markers? the man with white
markers? the man with red markers? Why nobody talk? Because very much
money. Because last turn."
"How do you know it is the last turn?" I asked.
"The king is coppered, the seven is played open," he answered. "Nobody
bet on other cards. Other cards all gone. Everybody one mind. Everybody
play king to lose, seven to win. Maybe bank lose twenty thousand
dollars, maybe bank win. Yes, that picture I understand."
"Yet you do not know the end!" I cried triumphantly. "It is the last
turn, but the cards are not yet turned. In the picture they will never
be turned. Nobody will ever know who wins nor who loses."
"And the men will sit there and never talk," he said, wonder and awe
growing in his face. "And the lookout will lean forward, and the blood
will be warm in the face of the dealer. It is a strange thing. Always
will they sit there, always; and the cards will never be turned."
"It is a picture," I said. "It is life. You have seen things like it
yourself."
He looked at me and pondered, then said, very slowly: "No, as you say,
there is no end to it. Nobody will ever know the end. Yet is it a true
thing. I have seen it. It is life."
For a long time he smoked on in silence, weighing the pictorial wisdom
of the white man and verifying it by the facts of life. He nodded his
head several times, and grunted once or twice. Then he knocked the
ashes from his pipe, carefully refilled it, and after a thoughtful
pause, lighted it again.
"Then have I, too, seen many pictures of life," he began; "pictures not
painted, but seen with the eyes. I have looked at them like through the
window at the man writing the letter. I have seen many pieces of life,
without beginning, without end, without understanding."
With a sudden change of position he turned his eyes full upon me and
regarded me thoughtfully.
"Look you," he said; "you are a painter-man. How would you paint this
which I saw, a picture without beginning, the ending of which I do not
understand, a piece of life with the northern lights for a candle and
Alaska for a frame."
"It is a large canvas," I murmured.
But he ignored me, for the picture he had in mind was before his eyes
and he was seeing it.
"There are many names for this picture," he said. "But in the picture
there are many sun-dogs, and it comes into my mind to call it 'The
Sun-Dog Trail.' It was a long time ago, seven years ago, the fall
of '97, when I saw the woman first time. At Lake Linderman I had one
canoe, very good Peterborough canoe. I came over Chilcoot Pass with
two thousand letters for Dawson. I was letter carrier. Everybody rush
to Klondike at that time. Many people on trail. Many people chop down
trees and make boats. Last water, snow in the air, snow on the ground,
ice on the lake, on the river ice in the eddies. Every day more snow,
more ice. Maybe one day, maybe three days, maybe six days, any day
maybe freeze-up come, then no more water, all ice, everybody walk,
Dawson six hundred miles, long time walk. Boat go very quick. Everybody
want to go boat. Everybody say, 'Charley, two hundred dollars you take
me in canoe,' 'Charley, three hundred dollars,' 'Charley, four hundred
dollars.' I say no, all the time I say no. I am letter carrier.
"In morning I get to Lake Linderman. I walk all night and am much
tired. I cook breakfast, I eat, then I sleep on the beach three hours.
I wake up. It is ten o'clock. Snow is falling. There is wind, much wind
that blows fair. Also, there is a woman who sits in the snow alongside.
She is white woman, she is young, very pretty, maybe she is twenty
years old, maybe twenty-five years old. She look at me. I look at her.
She is very tired. She is no dance-woman. I see that right away. She is
good woman, and she is very tired.
"'You are Sitka Charley,' she says. I get up quick and roll blankets
so snow does not get inside. 'I go to Dawson,' she says. 'I go in your
canoe--how much?'
"I do not want anybody in my canoe. I do not like to say no. So I say,
'One thousand dollars.' Just for fun I say it, so woman cannot come
with me, much better than say no. She look at me very hard, then she
says, 'When you start?' I say right away. Then she says all right, she
will give me one thousand dollars.
"What can I say? I do not want the woman, yet have I given my word that
for one thousand dollars she can come. I am surprised. Maybe she make
fun, too, so I say, 'Let me see thousand dollars.' And that woman, that
young woman, all alone on the trail, there in the snow, she take out
one thousand dollars, in greenbacks, and she put them in my hand. I
look at money, I look at her. What can I say? I say, 'No, my canoe very
small. There is no room for outfit.' She laugh. She says, 'I am great
traveller. This is my outfit.' She kick one small pack in the snow. It
is two fur robes, canvas outside, some woman's clothes inside. I pick
it up. Maybe thirty-five pounds. I am surprised. She take it away from
me. She says, 'Come, let us start.' She carries pack into canoe. What
can I say? I put my blankets into canoe. We start.
"And that is the way I saw the woman first time. The wind was fair. I
put up small sail. The canoe went very fast, it flew like a bird over
the high waves. The woman was much afraid. 'What for you come Klondike
much afraid?' I ask. She laugh at me, a hard laugh, but she is still
much afraid. Also is she very tired. I run canoe through rapids to Lake
Bennett. Water very bad, and woman cry out because she is afraid. We go
down Lake Bennett, snow, ice, wind like a gale, but woman is very tired
and go to sleep.
"That night we make camp at Windy Arm. Woman sit by fire and eat
supper. I look at her. She is pretty. She fix hair. There is much hair,
and it is brown, also sometimes it is like gold in the firelight, when
she turn her head, so, and flashes come from it like golden fire.
The eyes are large and brown, sometimes warm like a candle behind a
curtain, sometimes very hard and bright like broken ice when sun shines
upon it. When she smile--how can I say?--when she smile I know white
man like to kiss her, just like that, when she smile. She never do
hard work. Her hands are soft, like baby's hand. She is soft all over,
like baby. She is not thin, but round like baby; her arm, her leg, her
muscles, all soft and round like baby. Her waist is small, and when she
stand up, when she walk, or move her head or arm, it is--I do not know
the word--but it is nice to look at, like--maybe I say she is built on
lines like the lines of a good canoe, just like that, and when she move
she is like the movement of the good canoe sliding through still water
or leaping through water when it is white and fast and angry. It is
very good to see.
"Why does she come into Klondike, all alone, with plenty of money? I do
not know. Next day I ask her. She laugh and says: 'Sitka Charley, that
is none of your business. I give you one thousand dollars take me to
Dawson. That only is your business.' Next day after that I ask her what
is her name. She laugh, then she says, 'Mary Jones, that is my name.'
I do not know her name, but I know all the time that Mary Jones is not
her name.
"It is very cold in canoe, and because of cold sometimes she not feel
good. Sometimes she feel good and she sing. Her voice is like a silver
bell, and I feel good all over like when I go into church at Holy Cross
Mission, and when she sing I feel strong and paddle like hell. Then she
laugh and says, 'You think we get to Dawson before freeze-up, Charley?'
Sometimes she sit in canoe and is thinking far away, her eyes like
that, all empty. She does not see Sitka Charley, nor the ice, nor the
snow. She is far away. Very often she is like that, thinking far away.
Sometimes, when she is thinking far away, her face is not good to see.
It looks like a face that is angry, like the face of one man when he
want to kill another man.
"Last day to Dawson very bad. Shore-ice in all the eddies, mush-ice
in the stream. I cannot paddle. The canoe freeze to ice. I cannot get
to shore. There is much danger. All the time we go down Yukon in the
ice. That night there is much noise of ice. Then ice stop, canoe stop,
everything stop. 'Let us go to shore,' the woman says. I say no, better
wait. By and by, everything start down-stream again. There is much
snow. I cannot see. At eleven o'clock at night, everything stop. At
one o'clock everything start again. At three o'clock everything stop.
Canoe is smashed like eggshell, but is on top of ice and cannot sink.
I hear dogs howling. We wait. We sleep. By and by morning come. There
is no more snow. It is the freeze-up, and there is Dawson. Canoe smash
and stop right at Dawson. Sitka Charley has come in with two thousand
letters on very last water.
"The woman rent a cabin on the hill, and for one week I see her no
more. Then, one day, she come to me. 'Charley,' she says, 'how do you
like to work for me? You drive dogs, make camp, travel with me.' I say
that I make too much money carrying letters. She says, 'Charley, I will
pay you more money.' I tell her that pick-and-shovel man get fifteen
dollars a day in the mines. She says, 'That is four hundred and fifty
dollars a month.' And I say, 'Sitka Charley is no pick-and-shovel man.'
Then she says, 'I understand, Charley. I will give you seven hundred
and fifty dollars each month.' It is a good price, and I go to work for
her. I buy for her dogs and sled. We travel up Klondike, up Bonanza
and Eldorado, over to Indian River, to Sulphur Creek, to Dominion,
back across divide to Gold Bottom and to Too Much Gold, and back to
Dawson. All the time she look for something, I do not know what. I am
puzzled. 'What thing you look for?' I ask. She laugh. 'You look for
gold?' I ask. She laugh. Then she says, 'That is none of your business,
Charley.' And after that I never ask any more.
"She has a small revolver which she carries in her belt. Sometimes, on
trail, she makes practice with revolver. I laugh. 'What for you laugh,
Charley?' she ask. 'What for you play with that?' I say. 'It is no
good. It is too small. It is for a child, a little plaything.' When we
get back to Dawson she ask me to buy good revolver for her. I buy a
Colt's 44. It is very heavy, but she carry it in her belt all the time.
"At Dawson comes the man. Which way he come I do not know. Only do I
know he is _checha-quo_--what you call tenderfoot. His hands are soft,
just like hers. He never do hard work. He is soft all over. At first
I think maybe he is her husband. But he is too young. Also, they make
two beds at night. He is maybe twenty years old. His eyes blue, his
hair yellow, he has a little mustache which is yellow. His name is John
Jones. Maybe he is her brother. I do not know. I ask questions no more.
Only I think his name not John Jones. Other people call him Mr. Girvan.
I do not think that is his name. I do not think her name is Miss
Girvan, which other people call her. I think nobody know their names.
"One night I am asleep at Dawson. He wake me up. He says, 'Get the dogs
ready; we start.' No more do I ask questions, so I get the dogs ready
and we start. We go down the Yukon. It is night-time, it is November,
and it is very cold--sixty-five below. She is soft. He is soft. The
cold bites. They get tired. They cry under their breaths to themselves.
By and by I say better we stop and make camp. But they say that they
will go on. Three times I say better to make camp and rest, but each
time they say they will go on. After that I say nothing. All the time,
day after day, is it that way. They are very soft. They get stiff and
sore. They do not understand moccasins, and their feet hurt very much.
They limp, they stagger like drunken people, they cry under their
breaths; and all the time they say, 'On! on! We will go on!'
"They are like crazy people. All the time do they go on, and on. Why
do they go on? I do not know. Only do they go on. What are they after?
I do not know. They are not after gold. There is no stampede. Besides,
they spend plenty of money. But I ask questions no more. I, too, go on
and on, because I am strong on the trail and because I am greatly paid.
"We make Circle City. That for which they look is not there. I think
now that we will rest, and rest the dogs. But we do not rest, not for
one day do we rest. 'Come,' says the woman to the man, 'let us go on.'
And we go on. We leave the Yukon. We cross the divide to the west and
swing down into the Tanana Country. There are new diggings there. But
that for which they look is not there, and we take the back trail to
Circle City.
"It is a hard journey. December is most gone. The days are short. It
is very cold. One morning it is seventy below zero. 'Better that we
don't travel to-day,' I say, 'else will the frost be unwarmed in the
breathing and bite all the edges of our lungs. After that we will have
bad cough, and maybe next spring will come pneumonia.' But they are
_checha-quo_. They do not understand the trail. They are like dead
people they are so tired, but they say, 'Let us go on.' We go on. The
frost bites their lungs, and they get the dry cough. They cough till
the tears run down their cheeks. When bacon is frying they must run
away from the fire and cough half an hour in the snow. They freeze
their cheeks a little bit, so that the skin turns black and is very
sore. Also, the man freezes his thumb till the end is like to come
off, and he must wear a large thumb on his mitten to keep it warm. And
sometimes, when the frost bites hard and the thumb is very cold, he
must take off the mitten and put the hand between his legs next to the
skin, so that the thumb may get warm again.
"We limp into Circle City, and even I, Sitka Charley, am tired. It
is Christmas Eve. I dance, drink, make a good time, for to-morrow is
Christmas Day and we will rest. But no. It is five o'clock in the
morning--Christmas morning. I am two hours asleep. The man stand by my
bed. 'Come, Charley,' he says, 'harness the dogs. We start.'
"Have I not said that I ask questions no more? They pay me seven
hundred and fifty dollars each month. They are my masters. I am their
man. If they say, 'Charley, come, let us start for hell,' I will
harness the dogs, and snap the whip, and start for hell. So I harness
the dogs, and we start down the Yukon. Where do we go? They do not say.
Only do they say, 'On! on! We will go on!'
"They are very weary. They have travelled many hundreds of miles, and
they do not understand the way of the trail. Besides, their cough is
very bad--the dry cough that makes strong men swear and weak men cry.
But they go on. Every day they go on. Never do they rest the dogs.
Always do they buy new dogs. At every camp, at every post, at every
Indian village, do they cut out the tired dogs and put in fresh dogs.
They have much money, money without end, and like water they spend it.
They are crazy? Sometimes I think so, for there is a devil in them that
drives them on and on, always on. What is it that they try to find? It
is not gold. Never do they dig in the ground. I think a long time. Then
I think it is a man they try to find. But what man? Never do we see the
man. Yet are they like wolves on the trail of the kill. But they are
funny wolves, soft wolves, baby wolves who do not understand the way
of the trail. They cry aloud in their sleep at night. In their sleep
they moan and groan with the pain of their weariness. And in the day,
as they stagger along the trail, they cry under their breaths. They are
funny wolves.
"We pass Fort Yukon. We pass Fort Hamilton. We pass Minook. January has
come and nearly gone. The days are very short. At nine o'clock comes
daylight. At three o'clock comes night. And it is cold. And even I,
Sitka Charley, am tired. Will we go on forever this way without end? I
do not know. But always do I look along the trail for that which they
try to find. There are few people on the trail. Sometimes we travel one
hundred miles and never see a sign of life. It is very quiet. There
is no sound. Sometimes it snows, and we are like wandering ghosts.
Sometimes it is clear, and at midday the sun looks at us for a moment
over the hills to the south. The northern lights flame in the sky, and
the sun-dogs dance, and the air is filled with frost-dust.
"I am Sitka Charley, a strong man. I was born on the trail, and all
my days have I lived on the trail. And yet have these two baby wolves
made me very tired. I am lean, like a starved cat, and I am glad of my
bed at night, and in the morning am I greatly weary. Yet ever are we
hitting the trail in the dark before daylight, and still on the trail
does the dark after nightfall find us. These two baby wolves! If I
am lean like a starved cat, they are lean like cats that have never
eaten and have died. Their eyes are sunk deep in their heads, bright
sometimes as with fever, dim and cloudy sometimes like the eyes of the
dead. Their cheeks are hollow like caves in a cliff. Also are their
cheeks black and raw from many freezings. Sometimes it is the woman in
the morning who says, 'I cannot get up. I cannot move. Let me die.' And
it is the man who stands beside her and says, 'Come, let us go on.'
And they go on. And sometimes it is the man who cannot get up, and the
woman says, 'Come, let us go on.' But the one thing they do, and always
do, is to go on. Always do they go on.
"Sometimes, at the trading posts, the man and woman get letters. I do
not know what is in the letters. But it is the scent that they follow,
these letters themselves are the scent. One time an Indian gives them a
letter. I talk with him privately. He says it is a man with one eye who
gives him the letter, a man who travels fast down the Yukon. That is
all. But I know that the baby wolves are after the man with the one eye.
"It is February, and we have travelled fifteen hundred miles. We are
getting near Bering Sea, and there are storms and blizzards. The going
is hard. We come to Anvig. I do not know, but I think sure they get a
letter at Anvig, for they are much excited, and they say, 'Come, hurry,
let us go on.' But I say we must buy grub, and they say we must travel
light and fast. Also, they say that we can get grub at Charley McKeon's
cabin. Then do I know that they take the big cut-off, for it is there
that Charley McKeon lives where the Black Rock stands by the trail.
"Before we start, I talk maybe two minutes with the priest at Anvig.
Yes, there is a man with one eye who has gone by and who travels fast.
And I know that for which they look is the man with the one eye. We
leave Anvig with little grub, and travel light and fast. There are
three fresh dogs bought in Anvig, and we travel very fast. The man and
woman are like mad. We start earlier in the morning, we travel later
at night. I look sometimes to see them die, these two baby wolves, but
they will not die. They go on and on. When the dry cough take hold of
them hard, they hold their hands against their stomach and double up
in the snow, and cough, and cough, and cough. They cannot walk, they
cannot talk. Maybe for ten minutes they cough, maybe for half an hour,
and then they straighten up, the tears from the coughing frozen on
their faces, and the words they say are, 'Come, let us go on.'
"Even I, Sitka Charley, am greatly weary, and I think seven hundred
and fifty dollars is a cheap price for the labor I do. We take the big
cut-off, and the trail is fresh. The baby wolves have their noses down
to the trail, and they say, 'Hurry!' All the time do they say, 'Hurry!
Faster! Faster!' It is hard on the dogs. We have not much food and we
cannot give them enough to eat, and they grow weak. Also, they must
work hard. The woman has true sorrow for them, and often, because of
them, the tears are in her eyes. But the devil in her that drives her
on will not let her stop and rest the dogs.
"And then we come upon the man with the one eye. He is in the snow by
the trail, and his leg is broken. Because of the leg he has made a poor
camp, and has been lying on his blankets for three days and keeping a
fire going. When we find him he is swearing. He swears like hell. Never
have I heard a man swear like that man. I am glad. Now that they have
found that for which they look, we will have rest. But the woman says,
'Let us start. Hurry!'
"I am surprised. But the man with the one eye says, 'Never mind me.
Give me your grub. You will get more grub at McKeon's cabin to-morrow.
Send McKeon back for me. But do you go on.' Here is another wolf, an
old wolf, and he, too, thinks but the one thought, to go on. So we give
him our grub, which is not much, and we chop wood for his fire, and we
take his strongest dogs and go on. We left the man with one eye there
in the snow, and he died there in the snow, for McKeon never went back
for him. And who that man was, and why he came to be there, I do not
know. But I think he was greatly paid by the man and the woman, like
me, to do their work for them.
"That day and that night we had nothing to eat, and all next day we
travelled fast, and we were weak with hunger. Then we came to the Black
Rock, which rose five hundred feet above the trail. It was at the
end of the day. Darkness was coming, and we could not find the cabin
of McKeon. We slept hungry, and in the morning looked for the cabin.
It was not there, which was a strange thing, for everybody knew that
McKeon lived in a cabin at Black Rock. We were near to the coast, where
the wind blows hard and there is much snow. Everywhere there were small
hills of snow where the wind had piled it up. I have a thought, and I
dig in one and another of the hills of snow. Soon I find the walls of
the cabin, and I dig down to the door. I go inside. McKeon is dead.
Maybe two or three weeks he is dead. A sickness had come upon him so
that he could not leave the cabin. The wind and the snow had covered
the cabin. He had eaten his grub and died. I looked for his cache, but
there was no grub in it.
"'Let us go on,' said the woman. Her eyes were hungry, and her hand was
upon her heart, as with the hurt of something inside. She bent back
and forth like a tree in the wind as she stood there. 'Yes, let us go
on,' said the man. His voice was hollow, like the _klonk_ of an old
raven, and he was hunger-mad. His eyes were like live coals of fire,
and as his body rocked to and fro, so rocked his soul inside. And I,
too, said, 'Let us go on.' For that one thought, laid upon me like a
lash for every mile of fifteen hundred miles, had burned itself into
my soul, and I think that I, too, was mad. Besides, we could only go
on, for there was no grub. And we went on, giving no thought to the man
with the one eye in the snow.
"There is little travel on the big cut-off. Sometimes two or three
months and nobody goes by. The snow had covered the trail, and there
was no sign that men had ever come or gone that way. All day the wind
blew and the snow fell, and all day we travelled, while our stomachs
gnawed their desire and our bodies grew weaker with every step they
took. Then the woman began to fall. Then the man. I did not fall, but
my feet were heavy and I caught my toes and stumbled many times.
"That night is the end of February. I kill three ptarmigan with the
woman's revolver, and we are made somewhat strong again. But the dogs
have nothing to eat. They try to eat their harness, which is of leather
and walrus-hide, and I must fight them off with a club and hang all the
harness in a tree. And all night they howl and fight around that tree.
But we do not mind. We sleep like dead people, and in the morning get
up like dead people out of their graves and go on along the trail.
"That morning is the 1st of March, and on that morning I see the
first sign of that after which the baby wolves are in search. It is
clear weather, and cold. The sun stay longer in the sky, and there
are sun-dogs flashing on either side, and the air is bright with
frost-dust. The snow falls no more upon the trail, and I see the fresh
sign of dogs and sled. There is one man with that outfit, and I see
in the snow that he is not strong. He, too, has not enough to eat.
The young wolves see the fresh sign, too, and they are much excited.
'Hurry!' they say. All the time they say, 'Hurry! Faster, Charley,
faster!'
"We make hurry very slow. All the time the man and the woman fall down.
When they try to ride on sled the dogs are too weak, and the dogs fall
down. Besides, it is so cold that if they ride on the sled they will
freeze. It is very easy for a hungry man to freeze. When the woman fall
down, the man help her up. Sometimes the woman help the man up. By and
by both fall down and cannot get up, and I must help them up all the
time, else they will not get up and will die there in the snow. This is
very hard work, for I am greatly weary, and as well I must drive the
dogs, and the man and woman are very heavy with no strength in their
bodies. So, by and by, I, too, fall down in the snow, and there is no
one to help me up. I must get up by myself. And always do I get up by
myself, and help them up, and make the dogs go on.
"That night I get one ptarmigan, and we are very hungry. And that
night the man says to me, 'What time start to-morrow, Charley?' It is
like the voice of a ghost. I say, 'All the time you make start at five
o'clock.' 'To-morrow,' he says, 'we will start at three o'clock.' I
laugh in great bitterness, and I say, 'You are dead man.' And he says,
'To-morrow we will start at three o'clock.'
"And we start at three o'clock, for I am their man, and that which they
say is to be done, I do. It is clear and cold, and there is no wind.
When daylight comes we can see a long way off. And it is very quiet. We
can hear no sound but the beat of our hearts, and in the silence that
is a very loud sound. We are like sleep-walkers, and we walk in dreams
until we fall down; and then we know we must get up, and we see the
trail once more and bear the beating of our hearts. Sometimes, when I
am walking in dreams this way, I have strange thoughts. Why does Sitka
Charley live? I ask myself. Why does Sitka Charley work hard, and go
hungry, and have all this pain? For seven hundred and fifty dollars a
month, I make the answer, and I know it is a foolish answer. Also is
it a true answer. And after that never again do I care for money. For
that day a large wisdom came to me. There was a great light, and I saw
clear, and I knew that it was not for money that a man must live, but
for a happiness that no man can give, or buy, or sell, and that is
beyond all value of all money in the world.
"In the morning we come upon the last-night camp of the man who is
before us. It is a poor camp, the kind a man makes who is hungry
and without strength. On the snow there are pieces of blanket and
of canvas, and I know what has happened. His dogs have eaten their
harness, and he has made new harness out of his blankets. The man and
woman stare hard at what is to be seen, and as I look at them my back
feels the chill as of a cold wind against the skin. Their eyes are
toil-mad and hunger-mad, and burn like fire deep in their heads. Their
faces are like the faces of people who have died of hunger, and their
cheeks are black with the dead flesh of many freezings. 'Let us go on,'
says the man. But the woman coughs and falls in the snow. It is the dry
cough where the frost has bitten the lungs. For a long time she coughs,
then like a woman crawling out of her grave she crawls to her feet. The
tears are ice upon her cheeks, and her breath makes a noise as it comes
and goes, and she says, 'Let us go on.'
"We go on. And we walk in dreams through the silence. And every time we
walk is a dream and we are without pain; and every time we fall down is
an awakening, and we see the snow and the mountains and the fresh trail
of the man who is before us, and we know all our pain again. We come to
where we can see a long way over the snow, and that for which they look
is before them. A mile away there are black spots upon the snow. The
black spots move. My eyes are dim, and I must stiffen my soul to see.
And I see one man with dogs and a sled. The baby wolves see, too. They
can no longer talk, but they whisper, 'On, on. Let us hurry!'
"And they fall down, but they go on. The man who is before us, his
blanket harness breaks often, and he must stop and mend it. Our harness
is good, for I have hung it in trees each night. At eleven o'clock the
man is half a mile away. At one o'clock he is a quarter of a mile away.
He is very weak. We see him fall down many times in the snow. One of
his dogs can no longer travel, and he cuts it out of the harness. But
he does not kill it. I kill it with the axe as I go by, as I kill one
of my dogs which loses its legs and can travel no more.
"Now we are three hundred yards away. We go very slow. Maybe in two,
three hours we go one mile. We do not walk. All the time we fall down.
We stand up and stagger two steps, maybe three steps, then we fall down
again. And all the time I must help up the man and woman. Sometimes
they rise to their knees and fall forward, maybe four or five times
before they can get to their feet again and stagger two or three steps
and fall. But always do they fall forward. Standing or kneeling, always
do they fall forward, gaining on the trail each time by the length of
their bodies.
"Sometimes they crawl on hands and knees like animals that live in the
forest. We go like snails, like snails that are dying we go so slow.
And yet we go faster than the man who is before us. For he, too, falls
all the time, and there is no Sitka Charley to lift him up. Now he is
two hundred yards away. After a long time he is one hundred yards away.
"It is a funny sight. I want to laugh out loud, Ha! ha! just like that,
it is so funny. It is a race of dead men and dead dogs. It is like in
a dream when you have a nightmare and run away very fast for your life
and go very slow. The man who is with me is mad. The woman is mad. I am
mad. All the world is mad, and I want to laugh, it is so funny.
"The stranger-man who is before us leaves his dogs behind and goes on
alone across the snow. After a long time we come to the dogs. They lie
helpless in the snow, their harness of blanket and canvas on them, the
sled behind them, and as we pass them they whine to us and cry like
babies that are hungry.
"Then we, too, leave our dogs and go on alone across the snow. The
man and the woman are nearly gone, and they moan and groan and sob,
but they go on. I, too, go on. I have but one thought. It is to come
up to the stranger-man. Then it is that I shall rest, and not until
then shall I rest, and it seems that I must lie down and sleep for a
thousand years, I am so tired.
"The stranger-man is fifty yards away, all alone in the white snow. He
falls and crawls, staggers, and falls and crawls again. He is like an
animal that is sore wounded and trying to run from the hunter. By and
by he crawls on hands and knees. He no longer stands up. And the man
and woman no longer stand up. They, too, crawl after him on hands and
knees. But I stand up. Sometimes I fall, but always do I stand up again.
"It is a strange thing to see. All about is the snow and the silence,
and through it crawl the man and the woman, and the stranger-man who
goes before. On either side the sun are sun-dogs, so that there are
three suns in the sky. The frost-dust is like the dust of diamonds, and
all the air is filled with it. Now the woman coughs, and lies still
in the snow until the fit has passed, when she crawls on again. Now
the man looks ahead, and he is blear-eyed as with old age and must rub
his eyes so that he can see the stranger-man. And now the stranger-man
looks back over his shoulder. And Sitka Charley, standing upright,
maybe falls down and stands upright again.
"After a long time the stranger-man crawls no more. He stands slowly
upon his feet and rocks back and forth. Also does he take off one
mitten and wait with revolver in his hand, rocking back and forth as
he waits. His face is skin and bones and frozen black. It is a hungry
face. The eyes are deep-sunk in his head, and the lips are snarling.
The man and woman, too, get upon their feet and they go toward him very
slowly. And all about is the snow and the silence. And in the sky are
three suns, and all the air is flashing with the dust of diamonds.
"And thus it was that I, Sitka Charley, saw the baby wolves make their
kill. No word is spoken. Only does the stranger-man snarl with his
hungry face. Also does he rock to and fro, his shoulders drooping, his
knees bent, and his legs wide apart so that he does not fall down. The
man and the woman stop maybe fifty feet away. Their legs, too, are wide
apart so that they do not fall down, and their bodies rock to and fro.
The stranger-man is very weak. His arm shakes, so that when he shoots
at the man his bullet strikes in the snow. The man cannot take off his
mitten. The stranger-man shoots at him again, and this time the bullet
goes by in the air. Then the man takes the mitten in his teeth and
pulls it off. But his hand is frozen and he cannot hold the revolver,
and it fails in the snow. I look at the woman. Her mitten is off, and
the big Colt's revolver is in her hand. Three times she shoot, quick,
just like that. The hungry face of the stranger-man is still snarling
as he falls forward into the snow.
"They do not look at the dead man. 'Let us go on,' they say. And we go
on. But now that they have found that for which they look, they are
like dead. The last strength has gone out of them. They can stand no
more upon their feet. They will not crawl, but desire only to close
their eyes and sleep. I see not far away a place for camp. I kick them.
I have my dog-whip, and I give them the lash of it. They cry aloud, but
they must crawl. And they do crawl to the place for camp. I build fire
so that they will not freeze. Then I go back for sled. Also, I kill the
dogs of the stranger-man so that we may have food and not die. I put
the man and woman in blankets and they sleep. Sometimes I wake them and
give them little bit of food. They are not awake, but they take the
food. The woman sleep one day and a half. Then she wake up and go to
sleep again. The man sleep two days and wake up and go to sleep again.
After that we go down to the coast at St. Michaels. And when the ice
goes out of Bering Sea, the man and woman go away on a steamship. But
first they pay me my seven hundred and fifty dollars a month. Also,
they make me a present of one thousand dollars. And that was the year
that Sitka Charley gave much money to the Mission at Holy Cross."
"But why did they kill the man?" I asked.
Sitka Charley delayed reply until he had lighted his pipe. He glanced
at the _Police Gazette_ illustration and nodded his head at it
familiarly. Then he said, speaking slowly and ponderingly:
"I have thought much. I do not know. It is something that happened. It
is a picture I remember. It is like looking in at the window and seeing
the man writing a letter. They came into my life and they went out of
my life, and the picture is as I have said, without beginning, the end
without understanding."
"You have painted many pictures in the telling," I said.
"Ay," he nodded his head. "But they were without beginning and without
end."
"The last picture of all had an end," I said.
"Ay," he answered. "But what end?"
"It was a piece of life," I said.
"Ay," he answered. "It was a piece of life."