'Carmen won't last more than a couple of days.' Mason spat out a chunk
of ice and surveyed the poor animal ruefully, then put her foot in his
mouth and proceeded to bite out the ice which clustered cruelly between
the toes.
'I never saw a dog with a highfalutin' name that ever was worth a rap,'
he said, as he concluded his task and shoved her aside. 'They just fade
away and die under the responsibility. Did ye ever see one go wrong
with a sensible name like Cassiar, Siwash, or Husky? No, sir! Take a
look at Shookum here, he's--' Snap! The lean brute flashed up, the
white teeth just missing Mason's throat.
'Ye will, will ye?' A shrewd clout behind the ear with the butt of the
dog whip stretched the animal in the snow, quivering softly, a yellow
slaver dripping from its fangs.
'As I was saying, just look at Shookum here--he's got the spirit. Bet
ye he eats Carmen before the week's out.' 'I'll bank another
proposition against that,' replied Malemute Kid, reversing the frozen
bread placed before the fire to thaw. 'We'll eat Shookum before the
trip is over. What d'ye say, Ruth?' The Indian woman settled the coffee
with a piece of ice, glanced from Malemute Kid to her husband, then at
the dogs, but vouchsafed no reply. It was such a palpable truism that
none was necessary. Two hundred miles of unbroken trail in prospect,
with a scant six days' grub for themselves and none for the dogs, could
admit no other alternative. The two men and the woman grouped about the
fire and began their meager meal. The dogs lay in their harnesses for
it was a midday halt, and watched each mouthful enviously.
'No more lunches after today,' said Malemute Kid. 'And we've got to
keep a close eye on the dogs--they're getting vicious. They'd just as
soon pull a fellow down as not, if they get a chance.' 'And I was
president of an Epworth once, and taught in the Sunday school.' Having
irrelevantly delivered himself of this, Mason fell into a dreamy
contemplation of his steaming moccasins, but was aroused by Ruth
filling his cup.
'Thank God, we've got slathers of tea! I've seen it growing, down in
Tennessee. What wouldn't I give for a hot corn pone just now! Never
mind, Ruth; you won't starve much longer, nor wear moccasins either.'
The woman threw off her gloom at this, and in her eyes welled up a
great love for her white lord--the first white man she had ever
seen--the first man whom she had known to treat a woman as something
better than a mere animal or beast of burden.
'Yes, Ruth,' continued her husband, having recourse to the macaronic
jargon in which it was alone possible for them to understand each
other; 'wait till we clean up and pull for the Outside. We'll take the
White Man's canoe and go to the Salt Water. Yes, bad water, rough
water--great mountains dance up and down all the time. And so big, so
far, so far away--you travel ten sleep, twenty sleep, forty sleep'--he
graphically enumerated the days on his fingers--'all the time water,
bad water. Then you come to great village, plenty people, just the same
mosquitoes next summer. Wigwams oh, so high--ten, twenty pines.
'Hi-yu skookum!' He paused impotently, cast an appealing glance at
Malemute Kid, then laboriously placed the twenty pines, end on end, by
sign language. Malemute Kid smiled with cheery cynicism; but Ruth's
eyes were wide with wonder, and with pleasure; for she half believed he
was joking, and such condescension pleased her poor woman's heart.
'And then you step into a--a box, and pouf! up you go.' He tossed his
empty cup in the air by way of illustration and, as he deftly caught
it, cried: 'And biff! down you come. Oh, great medicine men! You go
Fort Yukon. I go Arctic City--twenty-five sleep--big string, all the
time--I catch him string--I say, "Hello, Ruth! How are ye?"--and you
say, "Is that my good husband?"--and I say, "Yes"--and you say, "No can
bake good bread, no more soda"--then I say, "Look in cache, under
flour; good-by." You look and catch plenty soda. All the time you Fort
Yukon, me Arctic City. Hi-yu medicine man!' Ruth smiled so ingenuously
at the fairy story that both men burst into laughter. A row among the
dogs cut short the wonders of the Outside, and by the time the snarling
combatants were separated, she had lashed the sleds and all was ready
for the trail.--'Mush! Baldy! Hi! Mush on!' Mason worked his whip
smartly and, as the dogs whined low in the traces, broke out the sled
with the gee pole. Ruth followed with the second team, leaving Malemute
Kid, who had helped her start, to bring up the rear. Strong man, brute
that he was, capable of felling an ox at a blow, he could not bear to
beat the poor animals, but humored them as a dog driver rarely
does--nay, almost wept with them in their misery.
'Come, mush on there, you poor sore-footed brutes!' he murmured, after
several ineffectual attempts to start the load. But his patience was at
last rewarded, and though whimpering with pain, they hastened to join
their fellows.
No more conversation; the toil of the trail will not permit such
extravagance.
And of all deadening labors, that of the Northland trail is the worst.
Happy is the man who can weather a day's travel at the price of
silence, and that on a beaten track. And of all heartbreaking labors,
that of breaking trail is the worst. At every step the great webbed
shoe sinks till the snow is level with the knee. Then up, straight up,
the deviation of a fraction of an inch being a certain precursor of
disaster, the snowshoe must be lifted till the surface is cleared; then
forward, down, and the other foot is raised perpendicularly for the
matter of half a yard. He who tries this for the first time, if haply
he avoids bringing his shoes in dangerous propinquity and measures not
his length on the treacherous footing, will give up exhausted at the
end of a hundred yards; he who can keep out of the way of the dogs for
a whole day may well crawl into his sleeping bag with a clear
conscience and a pride which passeth all understanding; and he who
travels twenty sleeps on the Long Trail is a man whom the gods may envy.
The afternoon wore on, and with the awe, born of the White Silence, the
voiceless travelers bent to their work. Nature has many tricks
wherewith she convinces man of his finity--the ceaseless flow of the
tides, the fury of the storm, the shock of the earthquake, the long
roll of heaven's artillery--but the most tremendous, the most
stupefying of all, is the passive phase of the White Silence. All
movement ceases, the sky clears, the heavens are as brass; the
slightest whisper seems sacrilege, and man becomes timid, affrighted at
the sound of his own voice. Sole speck of life journeying across the
ghostly wastes of a dead world, he trembles at his audacity, realizes
that his is a maggot's life, nothing more.
Strange thoughts arise unsummoned, and the mystery of all things
strives for utterance.
And the fear of death, of God, of the universe, comes over him--the
hope of the Resurrection and the Life, the yearning for immortality,
the vain striving of the imprisoned essence--it is then, if ever, man
walks alone with God.
So wore the day away. The river took a great bend, and Mason headed his
team for the cutoff across the narrow neck of land. But the dogs balked
at the high bank. Again and again, though Ruth and Malemute Kid were
shoving on the sled, they slipped back. Then came the concerted effort.
The miserable creatures, weak from hunger, exerted their last strength.
Up--up--the sled poised on the top of the bank; but the leader swung
the string of dogs behind him to the right, fouling Mason's snowshoes.
The result was grievous.
Mason was whipped off his feet; one of the dogs fell in the traces; and
the sled toppled back, dragging everything to the bottom again.
Slash! the whip fell among the dogs savagely, especially upon the one
which had fallen.
'Don't,--Mason,' entreated Malemute Kid; 'the poor devil's on its last
legs. Wait and we'll put my team on.' Mason deliberately withheld the
whip till the last word had fallen, then out flashed the long lash,
completely curling about the offending creature's body.
Carmen--for it was Carmen--cowered in the snow, cried piteously, then
rolled over on her side.
It was a tragic moment, a pitiful incident of the trail--a dying dog,
two comrades in anger.
Ruth glanced solicitously from man to man. But Malemute Kid restrained
himself, though there was a world of reproach in his eyes, and, bending
over the dog, cut the traces. No word was spoken. The teams were
doublespanned and the difficulty overcome; the sleds were under way
again, the dying dog dragging herself along in the rear. As long as an
animal can travel, it is not shot, and this last chance is accorded
it--the crawling into camp, if it can, in the hope of a moose being
killed.
Already penitent for his angry action, but too stubborn to make amends,
Mason toiled on at the head of the cavalcade, little dreaming that
danger hovered in the air. The timber clustered thick in the sheltered
bottom, and through this they threaded their way. Fifty feet or more
from the trail towered a lofty pine. For generations it had stood
there, and for generations destiny had had this one end in
view--perhaps the same had been decreed of Mason.
He stooped to fasten the loosened thong of his moccasin. The sleds came
to a halt, and the dogs lay down in the snow without a whimper. The
stillness was weird; not a breath rustled the frost-encrusted forest;
the cold and silence of outer space had chilled the heart and smote the
trembling lips of nature. A sigh pulsed through the air--they did not
seem to actually hear it, but rather felt it, like the premonition of
movement in a motionless void. Then the great tree, burdened with its
weight of years and snow, played its last part in the tragedy of life.
He heard the warning crash and attempted to spring up but, almost
erect, caught the blow squarely on the shoulder.
The sudden danger, the quick death--how often had Malemute Kid faced
it! The pine needles were still quivering as he gave his commands and
sprang into action. Nor did the Indian girl faint or raise her voice in
idle wailing, as might many of her white sisters. At his order, she
threw her weight on the end of a quickly extemporized handspike, easing
the pressure and listening to her husband's groans, while Malemute Kid
attacked the tree with his ax. The steel rang merrily as it bit into
the frozen trunk, each stroke being accompanied by a forced, audible
respiration, the 'Huh!' 'Huh!' of the woodsman.
At last the Kid laid the pitiable thing that was once a man in the
snow. But worse than his comrade's pain was the dumb anguish in the
woman's face, the blended look of hopeful, hopeless query. Little was
said; those of the Northland are early taught the futility of words and
the inestimable value of deeds. With the temperature at sixty-five
below zero, a man cannot lie many minutes in the snow and live. So the
sled lashings were cut, and the sufferer, rolled in furs, laid on a
couch of boughs. Before him roared a fire, built of the very wood which
wrought the mishap. Behind and partially over him was stretched the
primitive fly--a piece of canvas, which caught the radiating heat and
threw it back and down upon him--a trick which men may know who study
physics at the fount.
And men who have shared their bed with death know when the call is
sounded. Mason was terribly crushed. The most cursory examination
revealed it.
His right arm, leg, and back were broken; his limbs were paralyzed from
the hips; and the likelihood of internal injuries was large. An
occasional moan was his only sign of life.
No hope; nothing to be done. The pitiless night crept slowly by--Ruth's
portion, the despairing stoicism of her race, and Malemute Kid adding
new lines to his face of bronze.
In fact, Mason suffered least of all, for he spent his time in eastern
Tennessee, in the Great Smoky Mountains, living over the scenes of his
childhood. And most pathetic was the melody of his long-forgotten
Southern vernacular, as he raved of swimming holes and coon hunts and
watermelon raids. It was as Greek to Ruth, but the Kid understood and
felt--felt as only one can feel who has been shut out for years from
all that civilization means.
Morning brought consciousness to the stricken man, and Malemute Kid
bent closer to catch his whispers.
'You remember when we foregathered on the Tanana, four years come next
ice run? I didn't care so much for her then. It was more like she was
pretty, and there was a smack of excitement about it, I think. But d'ye
know, I've come to think a heap of her. She's been a good wife to me,
always at my shoulder in the pinch. And when it comes to trading, you
know there isn't her equal. D'ye recollect the time she shot the
Moosehorn Rapids to pull you and me off that rock, the bullets whipping
the water like hailstones?--and the time of the famine at
Nuklukyeto?--when she raced the ice run to bring the news?
'Yes, she's been a good wife to me, better'n that other one. Didn't
know I'd been there?
'Never told you, eh? Well, I tried it once, down in the States. That's
why I'm here. Been raised together, too. I came away to give her a
chance for divorce. She got it.
'But that's got nothing to do with Ruth. I had thought of cleaning up
and pulling for the Outside next year--her and I--but it's too late.
Don't send her back to her people, Kid. It's beastly hard for a woman
to go back. Think of it!--nearly four years on our bacon and beans and
flour and dried fruit, and then to go back to her fish and caribou.
It's not good for her to have tried our ways, to come to know they're
better'n her people's, and then return to them. Take care of her, Kid,
why don't you--but no, you always fought shy of them--and you never
told me why you came to this country. Be kind to her, and send her back
to the States as soon as you can. But fix it so she can come
back--liable to get homesick, you know.
'And the youngster--it's drawn us closer, Kid. I only hope it is a boy.
Think of it!--flesh of my flesh, Kid. He mustn't stop in this country.
And if it's a girl, why, she can't. Sell my furs; they'll fetch at
least five thousand, and I've got as much more with the company. And
handle my interests with yours. I think that bench claim will show up.
See that he gets a good schooling; and Kid, above all, don't let him
come back. This country was not made for white men.
'I'm a gone man, Kid. Three or four sleeps at the best. You've got to
go on. You must go on! Remember, it's my wife, it's my boy--O God! I
hope it's a boy! You can't stay by me--and I charge you, a dying man,
to pull on.'
'Give me three days,' pleaded Malemute Kid. 'You may change for the
better; something may turn up.'
'No.'
'Just three days.'
'You must pull on.'
'Two days.'
'It's my wife and my boy, Kid. You would not ask it.'
'One day.'
'No, no! I charge--'
'Only one day. We can shave it through on the grub, and I might knock
over a moose.'
'No--all right; one day, but not a minute more. And, Kid, don't--don't
leave me to face it alone. Just a shot, one pull on the trigger. You
understand. Think of it! Think of it! Flesh of my flesh, and I'll never
live to see him!
'Send Ruth here. I want to say good-by and tell her that she must think
of the boy and not wait till I'm dead. She might refuse to go with you
if I didn't. Goodby, old man; good-by.
'Kid! I say--a--sink a hole above the pup, next to the slide. I panned
out forty cents on my shovel there.
'And, Kid!' He stooped lower to catch the last faint words, the dying
man's surrender of his pride. 'I'm sorry--for--you know--Carmen.'
Leaving the girl crying softly over her man, Malemute Kid slipped into
his parka and snowshoes, tucked his rifle under his arm, and crept away
into the forest. He was no tyro in the stern sorrows of the Northland,
but never had he faced so stiff a problem as this. In the abstract, it
was a plain, mathematical proposition--three possible lives as against
one doomed one. But now he hesitated. For five years, shoulder to
shoulder, on the rivers and trails, in the camps and mines, facing
death by field and flood and famine, had they knitted the bonds of
their comradeship. So close was the tie that he had often been
conscious of a vague jealousy of Ruth, from the first time she had come
between. And now it must be severed by his own hand.
Though he prayed for a moose, just one moose, all game seemed to have
deserted the land, and nightfall found the exhausted man crawling into
camp, lighthanded, heavyhearted. An uproar from the dogs and shrill
cries from Ruth hastened him.
Bursting into the camp, he saw the girl in the midst of the snarling
pack, laying about her with an ax. The dogs had broken the iron rule of
their masters and were rushing the grub.
He joined the issue with his rifle reversed, and the hoary game of
natural selection was played out with all the ruthlessness of its
primeval environment. Rifle and ax went up and down, hit or missed with
monotonous regularity; lithe bodies flashed, with wild eyes and
dripping fangs; and man and beast fought for supremacy to the bitterest
conclusion. Then the beaten brutes crept to the edge of the firelight,
licking their wounds, voicing their misery to the stars.
The whole stock of dried salmon had been devoured, and perhaps five
pounds of flour remained to tide them over two hundred miles of
wilderness. Ruth returned to her husband, while Malemute Kid cut up the
warm body of one of the dogs, the skull of which had been crushed by
the ax. Every portion was carefully put away, save the hide and offal,
which were cast to his fellows of the moment before.
Morning brought fresh trouble. The animals were turning on each other.
Carmen, who still clung to her slender thread of life, was downed by
the pack. The lash fell among them unheeded. They cringed and cried
under the blows, but refused to scatter till the last wretched bit had
disappeared--bones, hide, hair, everything.
Malemute Kid went about his work, listening to Mason, who was back in
Tennessee, delivering tangled discourses and wild exhortations to his
brethren of other days.
Taking advantage of neighboring pines, he worked rapidly, and Ruth
watched him make a cache similar to those sometimes used by hunters to
preserve their meat from the wolverines and dogs. One after the other,
he bent the tops of two small pines toward each other and nearly to the
ground, making them fast with thongs of moosehide. Then he beat the
dogs into submission and harnessed them to two of the sleds, loading
the same with everything but the furs which enveloped Mason. These he
wrapped and lashed tightly about him, fastening either end of the robes
to the bent pines. A single stroke of his hunting knife would release
them and send the body high in the air.
Ruth had received her husband's last wishes and made no struggle. Poor
girl, she had learned the lesson of obedience well. From a child, she
had bowed, and seen all women bow, to the lords of creation, and it did
not seem in the nature of things for woman to resist. The Kid permitted
her one outburst of grief, as she kissed her husband--her own people
had no such custom--then led her to the foremost sled and helped her
into her snowshoes. Blindly, instinctively, she took the gee pole and
whip, and 'mushed' the dogs out on the trail. Then he returned to
Mason, who had fallen into a coma, and long after she was out of sight
crouched by the fire, waiting, hoping, praying for his comrade to die.
It is not pleasant to be alone with painful thoughts in the White
Silence. The silence of gloom is merciful, shrouding one as with
protection and breathing a thousand intangible sympathies; but the
bright White Silence, clear and cold, under steely skies, is pitiless.
An hour passed--two hours--but the man would not die. At high noon the
sun, without raising its rim above the southern horizon, threw a
suggestion of fire athwart the heavens, then quickly drew it back.
Malemute Kid roused and dragged himself to his comrade's side. He cast
one glance about him. The White Silence seemed to sneer, and a great
fear came upon him. There was a sharp report; Mason swung into his
aerial sepulcher, and Malemute Kid lashed the dogs into a wild gallop
as he fled across the snow.