In the starlit, bitter cold of a north country morning the three packed
their sledge and harnessed their dogs. The rawhide was stubborn with the
frost, the dogs uneasy. Knots would not tie. Pain nipped the fingers,
cruel pain that ate in and in until it had exposed to the shock of
little contacts every tightened nerve. Each stiff, clumsy movement was
agony. From time to time one of the three thrust hand in mitten to beat
the freezing back. Then a new red torture surged to the very
finger-tips. They bore it in silence, working hastily, knowing that
every morning of the long, winter trip this fearful hour must come. Thus
each day the North would greet them, squeezing their fingers in the
cruel hand-clasp of an antagonist testing their strength.
Over the supplies and blankets was drawn the skin envelope laced to the
sledge. The last reluctant knot was tied. Billy, the leader of the four
dogs, casting an intelligent eye at his masters, knew that all was
ready, and so arose from his haunches. Dick twisted his feet skilfully
into the loops of his snow-shoes. Sam, already equipped, seized the
heavy dog-whip. The girl took charge of the gee-pole with which the
sledge would be guided.
"Mush!--Mush on!" shouted Sam.
The four dogs leaned into their collars. The sledge creaked free of its
frost anchorage and moved.
First it became necessary to drop from the elevation to the river-bed.
Dick and May-may-gwán clung desperately. Sam exercised his utmost skill
and agility to keep the dogs straight. The toboggan hovered an instant
over the edge of the bank, then plunged, coasting down. Men hung back,
dogs ran to keep ahead. A smother of light snow settled to show, in the
dim starlight, the furrow of descent. And on the broad, white surface of
the river were eight spot of black which represented the followers of
the Long Trail.
Dick shook himself and stepped ahead of the dogs.
"Mush! Mush on!" commanded Sam again.
Dick ran on steadily in the soft snow, swinging his entire weight now on
one foot, now on the other, passing the snow-shoes with the peculiar
stiff swing of the ankle, throwing his heel strongly downward at each
step in order to take advantage of the long snow-shoe tails' elasticity.
At each step he sank deep into the feathery snow. The runner was forced
to lift the toe of the shoe sharply, and the snow swirled past his
ankles like foam. Behind him, in the trail thus broken and packed for
them, trotted the dogs, their noses low, their jaws hanging. Sam drove
with two long-lashed whips; and May-may-gwán, clinging to the gee-pole,
guided the sledge.
In the absolute and dead stillness of a winter morning before the dawn
the little train went like ghosts in a mist of starlight. The strange
glimmering that seems at such an hour to disengage from the snow itself
served merely to establish the separate bulks of that which moved across
it. The bending figure of the man breaking trail, his head low, his body
moving in its swing with the regularity of a pendulum; the four
wolf-like dogs, also bending easily to what was not a great labour, the
line of their open jaws and lolling tongues cut out against the snow;
another human figure; the low, dark mass of the sledge; and again the
bending figure at the rear,--all these contrasted in their half-blurred
uncertainty of outline and the suggested motion of their attitude with
the straight, clear silhouette of the spruce-trees against the sky.
Also the sounds of their travelling offered an analogous contrast. The
dull _crunch, crunch, crunch_ of the snow-shoes, the breathing of the
living beings, the glither and creak of the sledge came to the ear
blurred and confused; utterly unlike the cameo stillness of the winter
dawn.
Ten minutes of the really violent exertion of breaking trail warmed Dick
through. His fingers ceased their protest. Each breath, blowing to
steam, turned almost immediately to frost. He threw back the hood of his
capote, for he knew that should it become wet from the moisture of his
breath, it would freeze his skin, and with his violent exertions
exposure to the air was nothing. In a short time his eyebrows and
eyelashes became heavy with ice. Then slowly the moisture of his body,
working outward through the wool of his clothing, frosted on the
surface, so that gradually as time went on he grew to look more and more
like a great white-furred animal.
The driving here on the open river was comparatively easy. Except
occasionally, the straight line could be adhered to. When it became
necessary to avoid an obstruction, Sam gave the command loudly,
addressing Billy as the lead dog.
"Hu, Billy!" he would cry.
And promptly Billy would turn to the right. Or:
"Chac, Billy!" he would cry.
And Billy would turn to the left, with always in mind the thought of the
long whip to recall his duty to man.
Then the other dogs turned after him. Claire, for her steadiness and
sense, had been made sledge-dog. Always she watched sagaciously to pull
the end of the sledge strongly away should the deviation not prove
sufficient. Later, in the woods, when the trail should become difficult,
much would depend on Claire's good sense.
Now shortly, far to the south, the sun rose. The gray world at once
became brilliant. The low frost haze,--invisible until now, to be
invisible all the rest of the day,--for these few moments of the level
beams worked strange necromancies. The prisms of a million ice-drops on
shrubs and trees took fire. A bewildering flash and gleam of jewels
caught the eye in every direction. And, suspended in the air, like the
shimmer of a soft and delicate veiling, wavered and floated a mist of
vapour, tinted with rose and lilac, with amethyst and saffron.
As always on the Long Trail, our travellers' spirits rose with the sun.
Dick lengthened his stride, the dogs leaned to their collars, Sam threw
back his shoulders, the girl swung the sledge tail with added vim. Now
everything was warm and bright and beautiful. It was yet too early in
the day for fatigue, and the first discomforts had passed.
But in a few moments Dick stopped. The sledge at once came to a halt.
They rested.
At the end of ten minutes Sam stepped to the front, and Dick took the
dog-whip. The young man's muscles, still weak from their long inaction,
ached cruelly. Especially was this true of the ligaments at the
groin--used in lifting high the knee,--and the long muscles along the
front of the shinbone,--by which the toe of the snow-shoe was elevated.
He found himself very glad to drop behind into the beaten trail.
The sun by now had climbed well above the horizon, but did little to
mitigate the cold. As long as the violent movement was maintained a warm
and grateful glow followed the circulation, but a pause, even of a few
moments, brought the shivers. And always the feathery, clogging
snow,--offering slight resistance, it is true, but opposing that slight
resistance continuously, so that at last it amounted to a great deal. A
step taken meant no advance toward easier steps. The treadmill of forest
travel, changed only in outward form, again claimed their dogged
patience.
At noon they paused in the shelter of the woods. The dogs were anchored
by the simple expedient of turning the sledge on its side. A little fire
of dried spruce and pine branches speedily melted snow in the kettle,
and that as speedily boiled tea. Caribou steak, thawed, then cooked over
the blaze, completed the meal. As soon as it was swallowed they were off
again before the cold could mount them.
The inspiration and uplift of the morning were gone; the sun was
sinking to a colder and colder setting. All the vital forces of the
world were running down. A lethargy seized our travellers. An effort was
required merely to contemplate treading the mill during the three
remaining hours of daylight, a greater effort to accomplish the first
step of it, and an infinite series of ever-increasing efforts to make
the successive steps of that long afternoon. The mind became weary. And
now the North increased by ever so little the pressure against them,
sharpening the cold by a trifle; adding a few flakes' weight to the snow
they must lift on their shoes; throwing into the vista before them a
deeper, chillier tone of gray discouragement; intensifying the
loneliness; giving to the winds of desolation a voice. Well the great
antagonist knew she could not thus stop these men, but so, little by
little, she ground them down, wore away the excess of their vitality,
reduced them to grim plodding, so that at the moment she would hold them
weakened to her purposes. They made no sign, for they were of the great
men of the earth, but they bent to the familiar touch of many little
fingers pushing them back.
Now the sun did indeed swing to the horizon, so that there remained
scant daylight.
"Chac, Billy!" cried Sam, who again wielded the whip.
Slowly, wearily, the little party turned aside. In the grove of spruce
the snow clung thick and heavy. A cold blackness enveloped them like a
damp blanket. Wind, dying with the sun, shook the snow from the trees
and cried mournfully in their tops. Gray settled on the landscape,
palpable, real, extinguishing the world. It was the second dreadful hour
of the day, the hour when the man, weary, discouraged, the sweat of
travel freezing on him, must still address himself to the task of making
a home in the wilderness.
Again the sledge was turned on its side. Dick and May-may-gwán removed
their snow-shoes, and, using them as shovels, began vigorously to scrape
and dig away the snow. Sam unstrapped the axe and went for firewood. He
cut it with little tentative strokes, for in the intense cold the steel
was almost as brittle as glass.
Now a square of ground flanked by high snow walls was laid bare. The two
then stripped boughs of balsam with which to carpet all one end of it.
They unharnessed the dogs, and laid the sledge across one end of the
clear space, covering it with branches in order to keep the dogs from
gnawing the moose-skin wrapper. It was already quite dark.
But at this point Sam returned with fuel. At once the three set about
laying a fire nearly across the end of the cleared space opposite the
sledge. In a moment a tiny flame cast the first wavering shadows against
the darkness. Silently the inimical forces of the long day withdrew.
Shortly the camp was completed. Before the fire, impaled on sticks, hung
the frozen whitefish thawing out for the dogs. Each animal was to
receive two. The kettle boiled. Meat sizzled over the coals. A piece of
ice, whittled to a point, dripped drinking-water like a faucet. The
snow-bank ramparts were pink in the glow. They reflected appreciably the
heat of the fire, though they were not in the least affected by it, and
remained flaky to the touch. A comfortable sizzling and frying and
bubbling and snapping filled the little dome of firelight, beyond which
was the wilderness. Weary with an immense fatigue the three lay back
waiting for their supper to be done. The dogs, too, waited patiently
just at the edge of the heat, their bushy tails covering the bottoms of
their feet and their noses, as nature intended. Only Mack, the hound,
lacking this protection, but hardened to greater exposure, lay flat on
his side, his paws extended to the blaze. They all rested quietly, worn
out, apparently without the energy to move a single hair. But now Dick,
rising, took down from its switch the first of the whitefish. Instantly
every dog was on his feet. Their eyes glared yellow, their jaws
slavered, they leaped toward the man who held the fish high above his
head and kicked energetically at the struggling animals. Sam took the
dog whip to help. Between them the food was distributed, two fish to a
dog. The beasts took each his share to a place remote from the others
and bolted it hastily, returning at once on the chance of a further
distribution, or the opportunity to steal from his companions. After a
little more roaming about, growling and suspicious sniffing, they again
settled down one by one to slumber.
Almost immediately after supper the three turned in, first removing and
hanging before the fire the duffel and moccasins worn during the day.
These were replaced by larger and warmer sleep moccasins lined with fur.
The warm-lined coverings they pulled up over and around them completely,
to envelop even their heads. This arrangement is comfortable only after
long use has accustomed one to the half-suffocation; but it is
necessary, not only to preserve the warmth of the body, but also to
protect the countenance from freezing. At once they fell into exhausted
sleep.
As though they had awaited a signal, the dogs arose and proceeded to
investigate the camp. Nothing was too trivial to escape their attention.
Billy found a tiny bit of cooked meat. Promptly he was called on to
protect his discovery against a vigorous onslaught from the hound and
the other husky. Over and over the fighting dogs rolled, snorting and
biting, awakening the echoes of the forest, even trampling the sleepers,
who, nevertheless, did not stir. In the mean time, Claire, uninvolved,
devoured the morsel. The trouble gradually died down. One after another
the animals dug themselves holes in the snow, where they curled up,
their bushy tails over their noses and their fore paws. Only Mack, the
hound with the wrinkled face and long, pendent ears, unendowed with such
protection, crept craftily between his sleeping masters.
Gradually the fire died to coals, then filmed to ashes. Hand in hand the
cold and the darkness invaded the camp. As the firelight faded, objects
showed dimly, growing ever more distinct through the dying glow--the
snow-laden bushes, the pointed trees against a steel sky of stars. The
little, artificial tumult of homely sound by which these men had created
for the moment an illusion of life sank down under the unceasing
pressure of the verities, so that the wilderness again flowed
unobstructed through the forest aisles. With a last _pop_ of coals the
faint noise of the fire ceased. Then an even fainter noise slowly became
audible, a crackling undertone as of silken banners rustling. And at
once, splendid, barbaric, the mighty orgy of the winter-time aurora
began.