Transcribed from the 1913 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price,
[email protected] LOVE OF LIFEAND OTHER STORIES
BYJACK LONDONAUTHOR OF "THE CALL OF THE WILD," "PEOPLEOF THE ABYSS," ETC., ETC.
New YorkPUBLISHED FORTHE REVIEW OF REVIEWS COMPANYBY THE MACMILLAN COMPANYLONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD.1913_All rights reserved_
COPYRIGHT, 1906,By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
{He watched the play of life before him: p0.jpg}
Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1907. Reprinted December,1907; December, 1911. October, 1913.
LOVE OF LIFE
"This out of all will remain-- They have lived and have tossed: So much of the game will be gain, Though the gold of the dice has been lost."
They limped painfully down the bank, and once the foremost of the two menstaggered among the rough-strewn rocks. They were tired and weak, andtheir faces had the drawn expression of patience which comes of hardshiplong endured. They were heavily burdened with blanket packs which werestrapped to their shoulders. Head-straps, passing across the forehead,helped support these packs. Each man carried a rifle. They walked in astooped posture, the shoulders well forward, the head still fartherforward, the eyes bent upon the ground.
"I wish we had just about two of them cartridges that's layin' in thatcache of ourn," said the second man.
His voice was utterly and drearily expressionless. He spoke withoutenthusiasm; and the first man, limping into the milky stream that foamedover the rocks, vouchsafed no reply.
The other man followed at his heels. They did not remove theirfoot-gear, though the water was icy cold--so cold that their ankles achedand their feet went numb. In places the water dashed against theirknees, and both men staggered for footing.
The man who followed slipped on a smooth boulder, nearly fell, butrecovered himself with a violent effort, at the same time uttering asharp exclamation of pain. He seemed faint and dizzy and put out hisfree hand while he reeled, as though seeking support against the air.When he had steadied himself he stepped forward, but reeled again andnearly fell. Then he stood still and looked at the other man, who hadnever turned his head.
The man stood still for fully a minute, as though debating with himself.Then he called out:
"I say, Bill, I've sprained my ankle."
Bill staggered on through the milky water. He did not look around. Theman watched him go, and though his face was expressionless as ever, hiseyes were like the eyes of a wounded deer.
The other man limped up the farther bank and continued straight onwithout looking back. The man in the stream watched him. His lipstrembled a little, so that the rough thatch of brown hair which coveredthem was visibly agitated. His tongue even strayed out to moisten them.
"Bill!" he cried out.
It was the pleading cry of a strong man in distress, but Bill's head didnot turn. The man watched him go, limping grotesquely and lurchingforward with stammering gait up the slow slope toward the soft sky-lineof the low-lying hill. He watched him go till he passed over the crestand disappeared. Then he turned his gaze and slowly took in the circleof the world that remained to him now that Bill was gone.
Near the horizon the sun was smouldering dimly, almost obscured byformless mists and vapors, which gave an impression of mass and densitywithout outline or tangibility. The man pulled out his watch, the whileresting his weight on one leg. It was four o'clock, and as the seasonwas near the last of July or first of August,--he did not know theprecise date within a week or two,--he knew that the sun roughly markedthe northwest. He looked to the south and knew that somewhere beyondthose bleak hills lay the Great Bear Lake; also, he knew that in thatdirection the Arctic Circle cut its forbidding way across the CanadianBarrens. This stream in which he stood was a feeder to the CoppermineRiver, which in turn flowed north and emptied into Coronation Gulf andthe Arctic Ocean. He had never been there, but he had seen it, once, ona Hudson Bay Company chart.
Again his gaze completed the circle of the world about him. It was not aheartening spectacle. Everywhere was soft sky-line. The hills were alllow-lying. There were no trees, no shrubs, no grasses--naught but atremendous and terrible desolation that sent fear swiftly dawning intohis eyes.
"Bill!" he whispered, once and twice; "Bill!"
He cowered in the midst of the milky water, as though the vastness werepressing in upon him with overwhelming force, brutally crushing him withits complacent awfulness. He began to shake as with an ague-fit, tillthe gun fell from his hand with a splash. This served to rouse him. Hefought with his fear and pulled himself together, groping in the waterand recovering the weapon. He hitched his pack farther over on his leftshoulder, so as to take a portion of its weight from off the injuredankle. Then he proceeded, slowly and carefully, wincing with pain, tothe bank.
He did not stop. With a desperation that was madness, unmindful of thepain, he hurried up the slope to the crest of the hill over which hiscomrade had disappeared--more grotesque and comical by far than thatlimping, jerking comrade. But at the crest he saw a shallow valley,empty of life. He fought with his fear again, overcame it, hitched thepack still farther over on his left shoulder, and lurched on down theslope.
The bottom of the valley was soggy with water, which the thick moss held,spongelike, close to the surface. This water squirted out from under hisfeet at every step, and each time he lifted a foot the action culminatedin a sucking sound as the wet moss reluctantly released its grip. Hepicked his way from muskeg to muskeg, and followed the other man'sfootsteps along and across the rocky ledges which thrust like isletsthrough the sea of moss.
Though alone, he was not lost. Farther on he knew he would come to wheredead spruce and fir, very small and weazened, bordered the shore of alittle lake, the _titchin-nichilie_, in the tongue of the country, the"land of little sticks." And into that lake flowed a small stream, thewater of which was not milky. There was rush-grass on that stream--thishe remembered well--but no timber, and he would follow it till its firsttrickle ceased at a divide. He would cross this divide to the firsttrickle of another stream, flowing to the west, which he would followuntil it emptied into the river Dease, and here he would find a cacheunder an upturned canoe and piled over with many rocks. And in thiscache would be ammunition for his empty gun, fish-hooks and lines, asmall net--all the utilities for the killing and snaring of food. Also,he would find flour,--not much,--a piece of bacon, and some beans.
Bill would be waiting for him there, and they would paddle away southdown the Dease to the Great Bear Lake. And south across the lake theywould go, ever south, till they gained the Mackenzie. And south, stillsouth, they would go, while the winter raced vainly after them, and theice formed in the eddies, and the days grew chill and crisp, south tosome warm Hudson Bay Company post, where timber grew tall and generousand there was grub without end.
These were the thoughts of the man as he strove onward. But hard as hestrove with his body, he strove equally hard with his mind, trying tothink that Bill had not deserted him, that Bill would surely wait for himat the cache. He was compelled to think this thought, or else therewould not be any use to strive, and he would have lain down and died. Andas the dim ball of the sun sank slowly into the northwest he coveredevery inch--and many times--of his and Bill's flight south before thedowncoming winter. And he conned the grub of the cache and the grub ofthe Hudson Bay Company post over and over again. He had not eaten fortwo days; for a far longer time he had not had all he wanted to eat.Often he stooped and picked pale muskeg berries, put them into his mouth,and chewed and swallowed them. A muskeg berry is a bit of seed enclosedin a bit of water. In the mouth the water m
elts away and the seed chewssharp and bitter. The man knew there was no nourishment in the berries,but he chewed them patiently with a hope greater than knowledge anddefying experience.
At nine o'clock he stubbed his toe on a rocky ledge, and from sheerweariness and weakness staggered and fell. He lay for some time, withoutmovement, on his side. Then he slipped out of the pack-straps andclumsily dragged himself into a sitting posture. It was not yet dark,and in the lingering twilight he groped about among the rocks for shredsof dry moss. When he had gathered a heap he built a fire,--asmouldering, smudgy fire,--and put a tin pot of water on to boil.
He unwrapped his pack and the first thing he did was to count hismatches. There were sixty-seven. He counted them three times to makesure. He divided them into several portions, wrapping them in oil paper,disposing of one bunch in his empty tobacco pouch, of another bunch inthe inside band of his battered hat, of a third bunch under his shirt onthe chest. This accomplished, a panic came upon him, and he unwrappedthem all and counted them again. There were still sixty-seven.
He dried his wet foot-gear by the fire. The moccasins were in soggyshreds. The blanket socks were worn through in places, and his feet wereraw and bleeding. His ankle was throbbing, and he gave it anexamination. It had swollen to the size of his knee. He tore a longstrip from one of his two blankets and bound the ankle tightly. He toreother strips and bound them about his feet to serve for both moccasinsand socks. Then he drank the pot of water, steaming hot, wound hiswatch, and crawled between his blankets.
He slept like a dead man. The brief darkness around midnight came andwent. The sun arose in the northeast--at least the day dawned in thatquarter, for the sun was hidden by gray clouds.
At six o'clock he awoke, quietly lying on his back. He gazed straight upinto the gray sky and knew that he was hungry. As he rolled over on hiselbow he was startled by a loud snort, and saw a bull caribou regardinghim with alert curiosity. The animal was not mere than fifty feet away,and instantly into the man's mind leaped the vision and the savor of acaribou steak sizzling and frying over a fire. Mechanically he reachedfor the empty gun, drew a bead, and pulled the trigger. The bull snortedand leaped away, his hoofs rattling and clattering as he fled across theledges.
The man cursed and flung the empty gun from him. He groaned aloud as hestarted to drag himself to his feet. It was a slow and arduous task.
His joints were like rusty hinges. They worked harshly in their sockets,with much friction, and each bending or unbending was accomplished onlythrough a sheer exertion of will. When he finally gained his feet,another minute or so was consumed in straightening up, so that he couldstand erect as a man should stand.
He crawled up a small knoll and surveyed the prospect. There were notrees, no bushes, nothing but a gray sea of moss scarcely diversified bygray rocks, gray lakelets, and gray streamlets. The sky was gray. Therewas no sun nor hint of sun. He had no idea of north, and he hadforgotten the way he had come to this spot the night before. But he wasnot lost. He knew that. Soon he would come to the land of the littlesticks. He felt that it lay off to the left somewhere, not far--possiblyjust over the next low hill.
He went back to put his pack into shape for travelling. He assuredhimself of the existence of his three separate parcels of matches, thoughhe did not stop to count them. But he did linger, debating, over a squatmoose-hide sack. It was not large. He could hide it under his twohands. He knew that it weighed fifteen pounds,--as much as all the restof the pack,--and it worried him. He finally set it to one side andproceeded to roll the pack. He paused to gaze at the squat moose-hidesack. He picked it up hastily with a defiant glance about him, as thoughthe desolation were trying to rob him of it; and when he rose to his feetto stagger on into the day, it was included in the pack on his back.
He bore away to the left, stopping now and again to eat muskeg berries.His ankle had stiffened, his limp was more pronounced, but the pain of itwas as nothing compared with the pain of his stomach. The hunger pangswere sharp. They gnawed and gnawed until he could not keep his mindsteady on the course he must pursue to gain the land of little sticks.The muskeg berries did not allay this gnawing, while they made his tongueand the roof of his mouth sore with their irritating bite.
He came upon a valley where rock ptarmigan rose on whirring wings fromthe ledges and muskegs. Ker--ker--ker was the cry they made. He threwstones at them, but could not hit them. He placed his pack on the groundand stalked them as a cat stalks a sparrow. The sharp rocks cut throughhis pants' legs till his knees left a trail of blood; but the hurt waslost in the hurt of his hunger. He squirmed over the wet moss,saturating his clothes and chilling his body; but he was not aware of it,so great was his fever for food. And always the ptarmigan rose,whirring, before him, till their ker--ker--ker became a mock to him, andhe cursed them and cried aloud at them with their own cry.
Once he crawled upon one that must have been asleep. He did not see ittill it shot up in his face from its rocky nook. He made a clutch asstartled as was the rise of the ptarmigan, and there remained in his handthree tail-feathers. As he watched its flight he hated it, as though ithad done him some terrible wrong. Then he returned and shouldered hispack.
As the day wore along he came into valleys or swales where game was moreplentiful. A band of caribou passed by, twenty and odd animals,tantalizingly within rifle range. He felt a wild desire to run afterthem, a certitude that he could run them down. A black fox came towardhim, carrying a ptarmigan in his mouth. The man shouted. It was afearful cry, but the fox, leaping away in fright, did not drop theptarmigan.
Late in the afternoon he followed a stream, milky with lime, which ranthrough sparse patches of rush-grass. Grasping these rushes firmly nearthe root, he pulled up what resembled a young onion-sprout no larger thana shingle-nail. It was tender, and his teeth sank into it with a crunchthat promised deliciously of food. But its fibers were tough. It wascomposed of stringy filaments saturated with water, like the berries, anddevoid of nourishment. He threw off his pack and went into therush-grass on hands and knees, crunching and munching, like some bovinecreature.
He was very weary and often wished to rest--to lie down and sleep; but hewas continually driven on--not so much by his desire to gain the land oflittle sticks as by his hunger. He searched little ponds for frogs anddug up the earth with his nails for worms, though he knew in spite thatneither frogs nor worms existed so far north.
He looked into every pool of water vainly, until, as the long twilightcame on, he discovered a solitary fish, the size of a minnow, in such apool. He plunged his arm in up to the shoulder, but it eluded him. Hereached for it with both hands and stirred up the milky mud at thebottom. In his excitement he fell in, wetting himself to the waist. Thenthe water was too muddy to admit of his seeing the fish, and he wascompelled to wait until the sediment had settled.
The pursuit was renewed, till the water was again muddied. But he couldnot wait. He unstrapped the tin bucket and began to bale the pool. Hebaled wildly at first, splashing himself and flinging the water so shorta distance that it ran back into the pool. He worked more carefully,striving to be cool, though his heart was pounding against his chest andhis hands were trembling. At the end of half an hour the pool was nearlydry. Not a cupful of water remained. And there was no fish. He found ahidden crevice among the stones through which it had escaped to theadjoining and larger pool--a pool which he could not empty in a night anda day. Had he known of the crevice, he could have closed it with a rockat the beginning and the fish would have been his.
Thus he thought, and crumpled up and sank down upon the wet earth. Atfirst he cried softly to himself, then he cried loudly to the pitilessdesolation that ringed him around; and for a long time after he wasshaken by great dry sobs.
He built a fire and warmed himself by drinking quarts of hot water, andmade camp on a rocky ledge in the same fashion he had the night before.The last thing he did was to see that his match
es were dry and to windhis watch. The blankets were wet and clammy. His ankle pulsed withpain. But he knew only that he was hungry, and through his restlesssleep he dreamed of feasts and banquets and of food served and spread inall imaginable ways.
He awoke chilled and sick. There was no sun. The gray of earth and skyhad become deeper, more profound. A raw wind was blowing, and the firstflurries of snow were whitening the hilltops. The air about himthickened and grew white while he made a fire and boiled more water. Itwas wet snow, half rain, and the flakes were large and soggy. At firstthey melted as soon as they came in contact with the earth, but ever morefell, covering the ground, putting out the fire, spoiling his supply ofmoss-fuel.
This was a signal for him to strap on his pack and stumble onward, heknew not where. He was not concerned with the land of little sticks, norwith Bill and the cache under the upturned canoe by the river Dease. Hewas mastered by the verb "to eat." He was hunger-mad. He took no heedof the course he pursued, so long as that course led him through theswale bottoms. He felt his way through the wet snow to the watery muskegberries, and went by feel as he pulled up the rush-grass by the roots.But it was tasteless stuff and did not satisfy. He found a weed thattasted sour and he ate all he could find of it, which was not much, forit was a creeping growth, easily hidden under the several inches of snow.
He had no fire that night, nor hot water, and crawled under his blanketto sleep the broken hunger-sleep. The snow turned into a cold rain. Heawakened many times to feel it falling on his upturned face. Day came--agray day and no sun. It had ceased raining. The keenness of his hungerhad departed. Sensibility, as far as concerned the yearning for food,had been exhausted. There was a dull, heavy ache in his stomach, but itdid not bother him so much. He was more rational, and once more he waschiefly interested in the land of little sticks and the cache by theriver Dease.
He ripped the remnant of one of his blankets into strips and bound hisbleeding feet. Also, he recinched the injured ankle and prepared himselffor a day of travel. When he came to his pack, he paused long over thesquat moose-hide sack, but in the end it went with him.
The snow had melted under the rain, and only the hilltops showed white.The sun came out, and he succeeded in locating the points of the compass,though he knew now that he was lost. Perhaps, in his previous days'wanderings, he had edged away too far to the left. He now bore off tothe right to counteract the possible deviation from his true course.
Though the hunger pangs were no longer so exquisite, he realized that hewas weak. He was compelled to pause for frequent rests, when he attackedthe muskeg berries and rush-grass patches. His tongue felt dry andlarge, as though covered with a fine hairy growth, and it tasted bitterin his mouth. His heart gave him a great deal of trouble. When he hadtravelled a few minutes it would begin a remorseless thump, thump, thump,and then leap up and away in a painful flutter of beats that choked himand made him go faint and dizzy.
In the middle of the day he found two minnows in a large pool. It wasimpossible to bale it, but he was calmer now and managed to catch them inhis tin bucket. They were no longer than his little finger, but he wasnot particularly hungry. The dull ache in his stomach had been growingduller and fainter. It seemed almost that his stomach was dozing. Heate the fish raw, masticating with painstaking care, for the eating wasan act of pure reason. While he had no desire to eat, he knew that hemust eat to live.
In the evening he caught three more minnows, eating two and saving thethird for breakfast. The sun had dried stray shreds of moss, and he wasable to warm himself with hot water. He had not covered more than tenmiles that day; and the next day, travelling whenever his heart permittedhim, he covered no more than five miles. But his stomach did not givehim the slightest uneasiness. It had gone to sleep. He was in a strangecountry, too, and the caribou were growing more plentiful, also thewolves. Often their yelps drifted across the desolation, and once he sawthree of them slinking away before his path.
Another night; and in the morning, being more rational, he untied theleather string that fastened the squat moose-hide sack. From its openmouth poured a yellow stream of coarse gold-dust and nuggets. He roughlydivided the gold in halves, caching one half on a prominent ledge,wrapped in a piece of blanket, and returning the other half to the sack.He also began to use strips of the one remaining blanket for his feet. Hestill clung to his gun, for there were cartridges in that cache by theriver Dease.
This was a day of fog, and this day hunger awoke in him again. He wasvery weak and was afflicted with a giddiness which at times blinded him.It was no uncommon thing now for him to stumble and fall; and stumblingonce, he fell squarely into a ptarmigan nest. There were four newlyhatched chicks, a day old--little specks of pulsating life no more than amouthful; and he ate them ravenously, thrusting them alive into his mouthand crunching them like egg-shells between his teeth. The motherptarmigan beat about him with great outcry. He used his gun as a clubwith which to knock her over, but she dodged out of reach. He threwstones at her and with one chance shot broke a wing. Then she flutteredaway, running, trailing the broken wing, with him in pursuit.
The little chicks had no more than whetted his appetite. He hopped andbobbed clumsily along on his injured ankle, throwing stones and screaminghoarsely at times; at other times hopping and bobbing silently along,picking himself up grimly and patiently when he fell, or rubbing his eyeswith his hand when the giddiness threatened to overpower him.
The chase led him across swampy ground in the bottom of the valley, andhe came upon footprints in the soggy moss. They were not his own--hecould see that. They must be Bill's. But he could not stop, for themother ptarmigan was running on. He would catch her first, then he wouldreturn and investigate.
He exhausted the mother ptarmigan; but he exhausted himself. She laypanting on her side. He lay panting on his side, a dozen feet away,unable to crawl to her. And as he recovered she recovered, flutteringout of reach as his hungry hand went out to her. The chase was resumed.Night settled down and she escaped. He stumbled from weakness andpitched head foremost on his face, cutting his cheek, his pack upon hisback. He did not move for a long while; then he rolled over on his side,wound his watch, and lay there until morning.
Another day of fog. Half of his last blanket had gone intofoot-wrappings. He failed to pick up Bill's trail. It did not matter.His hunger was driving him too compellingly--only--only he wondered ifBill, too, were lost. By midday the irk of his pack became toooppressive. Again he divided the gold, this time merely spilling half ofit on the ground. In the afternoon he threw the rest of it away, thereremaining to him only the half-blanket, the tin bucket, and the rifle.
An hallucination began to trouble him. He felt confident that onecartridge remained to him. It was in the chamber of the rifle and he hadoverlooked it. On the other hand, he knew all the time that the chamberwas empty. But the hallucination persisted. He fought it off for hours,then threw his rifle open and was confronted with emptiness. Thedisappointment was as bitter as though he had really expected to find thecartridge.
He plodded on for half an hour, when the hallucination arose again. Againhe fought it, and still it persisted, till for very relief he opened hisrifle to unconvince himself. At times his mind wandered farther afield,and he plodded on, a mere automaton, strange conceits and whimsicalitiesgnawing at his brain like worms. But these excursions out of the realwere of brief duration, for ever the pangs of the hunger-bite called himback. He was jerked back abruptly once from such an excursion by a sightthat caused him nearly to faint. He reeled and swayed, doddering like adrunken man to keep from falling. Before him stood a horse. A horse! Hecould not believe his eyes. A thick mist was in them, intershot withsparkling points of light. He rubbed his eyes savagely to clear hisvision, and beheld, not a horse, but a great brown bear. The animal wasstudying him with bellicose curiosity.
The man had brought his gun halfway to his shoulder before he realized.He lowe
red it and drew his hunting-knife from its beaded sheath at hiship. Before him was meat and life. He ran his thumb along the edge ofhis knife. It was sharp. The point was sharp. He would fling himselfupon the bear and kill it. But his heart began its warning thump, thump,thump. Then followed the wild upward leap and tattoo of flutters, thepressing as of an iron band about his forehead, the creeping of thedizziness into his brain.
His desperate courage was evicted by a great surge of fear. In hisweakness, what if the animal attacked him? He drew himself up to hismost imposing stature, gripping the knife and staring hard at the bear.The bear advanced clumsily a couple of steps, reared up, and gave vent toa tentative growl. If the man ran, he would run after him; but the mandid not run. He was animated now with the courage of fear. He, too,growled, savagely, terribly, voicing the fear that is to life germane andthat lies twisted about life's deepest roots.
The bear edged away to one side, growling menacingly, himself appalled bythis mysterious creature that appeared upright and unafraid. But the mandid not move. He stood like a statue till the danger was past, when heyielded to a fit of trembling and sank down into the wet moss.
He pulled himself together and went on, afraid now in a new way. It wasnot the fear that he should die passively from lack of food, but that heshould be destroyed violently before starvation had exhausted the lastparticle of the endeavor in him that made toward surviving. There werethe wolves. Back and forth across the desolation drifted their howls,weaving the very air into a fabric of menace that was so tangible that hefound himself, arms in the air, pressing it back from him as it might bethe walls of a wind-blown tent.
Now and again the wolves, in packs of two and three, crossed his path.But they sheered clear of him. They were not in sufficient numbers, andbesides they were hunting the caribou, which did not battle, while thisstrange creature that walked erect might scratch and bite.
In the late afternoon he came upon scattered bones where the wolves hadmade a kill. The debris had been a caribou calf an hour before,squawking and running and very much alive. He contemplated the bones,clean-picked and polished, pink with the cell-life in them which had notyet died. Could it possibly be that he might be that ere the day wasdone! Such was life, eh? A vain and fleeting thing. It was only lifethat pained. There was no hurt in death. To die was to sleep. It meantcessation, rest. Then why was he not content to die?
But he did not moralize long. He was squatting in the moss, a bone inhis mouth, sucking at the shreds of life that still dyed it faintly pink.The sweet meaty taste, thin and elusive almost as a memory, maddened him.He closed his jaws on the bones and crunched. Sometimes it was the bonethat broke, sometimes his teeth. Then he crushed the bones betweenrocks, pounded them to a pulp, and swallowed them. He pounded hisfingers, too, in his haste, and yet found a moment in which to feelsurprise at the fact that his fingers did not hurt much when caught underthe descending rock.
Came frightful days of snow and rain. He did not know when he made camp,when he broke camp. He travelled in the night as much as in the day. Herested wherever he fell, crawled on whenever the dying life in himflickered up and burned less dimly. He, as a man, no longer strove. Itwas the life in him, unwilling to die, that drove him on. He did notsuffer. His nerves had become blunted, numb, while his mind was filledwith weird visions and delicious dreams.
But ever he sucked and chewed on the crushed bones of the caribou calf,the least remnants of which he had gathered up and carried with him. Hecrossed no more hills or divides, but automatically followed a largestream which flowed through a wide and shallow valley. He did not seethis stream nor this valley. He saw nothing save visions. Soul and bodywalked or crawled side by side, yet apart, so slender was the thread thatbound them.
He awoke in his right mind, lying on his back on a rocky ledge. The sunwas shining bright and warm. Afar off he heard the squawking of cariboucalves. He was aware of vague memories of rain and wind and snow, butwhether he had been beaten by the storm for two days or two weeks he didnot know.
For some time he lay without movement, the genial sunshine pouring uponhim and saturating his miserable body with its warmth. A fine day, hethought. Perhaps he could manage to locate himself. By a painful efforthe rolled over on his side. Below him flowed a wide and sluggish river.Its unfamiliarity puzzled him. Slowly he followed it with his eyes,winding in wide sweeps among the bleak, bare hills, bleaker and barer andlower-lying than any hills he had yet encountered. Slowly, deliberately,without excitement or more than the most casual interest, he followed thecourse of the strange stream toward the sky-line and saw it emptying intoa bright and shining sea. He was still unexcited. Most unusual, hethought, a vision or a mirage--more likely a vision, a trick of hisdisordered mind. He was confirmed in this by sight of a ship lying atanchor in the midst of the shining sea. He closed his eyes for a while,then opened them. Strange how the vision persisted! Yet not strange. Heknew there were no seas or ships in the heart of the barren lands, justas he had known there was no cartridge in the empty rifle.
He heard a snuffle behind him--a half-choking gasp or cough. Veryslowly, because of his exceeding weakness and stiffness, he rolled overon his other side. He could see nothing near at hand, but he waitedpatiently. Again came the snuffle and cough, and outlined between twojagged rocks not a score of feet away he made out the gray head of awolf. The sharp ears were not pricked so sharply as he had seen them onother wolves; the eyes were bleared and bloodshot, the head seemed todroop limply and forlornly. The animal blinked continually in thesunshine. It seemed sick. As he looked it snuffled and coughed again.
This, at least, was real, he thought, and turned on the other side sothat he might see the reality of the world which had been veiled from himbefore by the vision. But the sea still shone in the distance and theship was plainly discernible. Was it reality, after all? He closed hiseyes for a long while and thought, and then it came to him. He had beenmaking north by east, away from the Dease Divide and into the CoppermineValley. This wide and sluggish river was the Coppermine. That shiningsea was the Arctic Ocean. That ship was a whaler, strayed east, fareast, from the mouth of the Mackenzie, and it was lying at anchor inCoronation Gulf. He remembered the Hudson Bay Company chart he had seenlong ago, and it was all clear and reasonable to him.
He sat up and turned his attention to immediate affairs. He had wornthrough the blanket-wrappings, and his feet were shapeless lumps of rawmeat. His last blanket was gone. Rifle and knife were both missing. Hehad lost his hat somewhere, with the bunch of matches in the band, butthe matches against his chest were safe and dry inside the tobacco pouchand oil paper. He looked at his watch. It marked eleven o'clock and wasstill running. Evidently he had kept it wound.
He was calm and collected. Though extremely weak, he had no sensation ofpain. He was not hungry. The thought of food was not even pleasant tohim, and whatever he did was done by his reason alone. He ripped off hispants' legs to the knees and bound them about his feet. Somehow he hadsucceeded in retaining the tin bucket. He would have some hot waterbefore he began what he foresaw was to be a terrible journey to the ship.
His movements were slow. He shook as with a palsy. When he started tocollect dry moss, he found he could not rise to his feet. He tried againand again, then contented himself with crawling about on hands and knees.Once he crawled near to the sick wolf. The animal dragged itselfreluctantly out of his way, licking its chops with a tongue which seemedhardly to have the strength to curl. The man noticed that the tongue wasnot the customary healthy red. It was a yellowish brown and seemedcoated with a rough and half-dry mucus.
After he had drunk a quart of hot water the man found he was able tostand, and even to walk as well as a dying man might be supposed to walk.Every minute or so he was compelled to rest. His steps were feeble anduncertain, just as the wolf's that trailed him were feeble and uncertain;and that night, when the shining sea was blotted out by blackness, hekn
ew he was nearer to it by no more than four miles.
Throughout the night he heard the cough of the sick wolf, and now andthen the squawking of the caribou calves. There was life all around him,but it was strong life, very much alive and well, and he knew the sickwolf clung to the sick man's trail in the hope that the man would diefirst. In the morning, on opening his eyes, he beheld it regarding himwith a wistful and hungry stare. It stood crouched, with tail betweenits legs, like a miserable and woe-begone dog. It shivered in the chillmorning wind, and grinned dispiritedly when the man spoke to it in avoice that achieved no more than a hoarse whisper.
The sun rose brightly, and all morning the man tottered and fell towardthe ship on the shining sea. The weather was perfect. It was the briefIndian Summer of the high latitudes. It might last a week. To-morrow ornext day it might he gone.
In the afternoon the man came upon a trail. It was of another man, whodid not walk, but who dragged himself on all fours. The man thought itmight be Bill, but he thought in a dull, uninterested way. He had nocuriosity. In fact, sensation and emotion had left him. He was nolonger susceptible to pain. Stomach and nerves had gone to sleep. Yetthe life that was in him drove him on. He was very weary, but it refusedto die. It was because it refused to die that he still ate muskegberries and minnows, drank his hot water, and kept a wary eye on the sickwolf.
He followed the trail of the other man who dragged himself along, andsoon came to the end of it--a few fresh-picked bones where the soggy mosswas marked by the foot-pads of many wolves. He saw a squat moose-hidesack, mate to his own, which had been torn by sharp teeth. He picked itup, though its weight was almost too much for his feeble fingers. Billhad carried it to the last. Ha! ha! He would have the laugh on Bill. Hewould survive and carry it to the ship in the shining sea. His mirth washoarse and ghastly, like a raven's croak, and the sick wolf joined him,howling lugubriously. The man ceased suddenly. How could he have thelaugh on Bill if that were Bill; if those bones, so pinky-white andclean, were Bill?
He turned away. Well, Bill had deserted him; but he would not take thegold, nor would he suck Bill's bones. Bill would have, though, had itbeen the other way around, he mused as he staggered on.
He came to a pool of water. Stooping over in quest of minnows, he jerkedhis head back as though he had been stung. He had caught sight of hisreflected face. So horrible was it that sensibility awoke long enough tobe shocked. There were three minnows in the pool, which was too large todrain; and after several ineffectual attempts to catch them in the tinbucket he forbore. He was afraid, because of his great weakness, that hemight fall in and drown. It was for this reason that he did not trusthimself to the river astride one of the many drift-logs which lined itssand-spits.
That day he decreased the distance between him and the ship by threemiles; the next day by two--for he was crawling now as Bill had crawled;and the end of the fifth day found the ship still seven miles away andhim unable to make even a mile a day. Still the Indian Summer held on,and he continued to crawl and faint, turn and turn about; and ever thesick wolf coughed and wheezed at his heels. His knees had become rawmeat like his feet, and though he padded them with the shirt from hisback it was a red track he left behind him on the moss and stones. Once,glancing back, he saw the wolf licking hungrily his bleeding trail, andhe saw sharply what his own end might be--unless--unless he could get thewolf. Then began as grim a tragedy of existence as was ever played--asick man that crawled, a sick wolf that limped, two creatures draggingtheir dying carcasses across the desolation and hunting each other'slives.
Had it been a well wolf, it would not have mattered so much to the man;but the thought of going to feed the maw of that loathsome and all butdead thing was repugnant to him. He was finicky. His mind had begun towander again, and to be perplexed by hallucinations, while his lucidintervals grew rarer and shorter.
He was awakened once from a faint by a wheeze close in his ear. The wolfleaped lamely back, losing its footing and falling in its weakness. Itwas ludicrous, but he was not amused. Nor was he even afraid. He wastoo far gone for that. But his mind was for the moment clear, and he layand considered. The ship was no more than four miles away. He could seeit quite distinctly when he rubbed the mists out of his eyes, and hecould see the white sail of a small boat cutting the water of the shiningsea. But he could never crawl those four miles. He knew that, and wasvery calm in the knowledge. He knew that he could not crawl half a mile.And yet he wanted to live. It was unreasonable that he should die afterall he had undergone. Fate asked too much of him. And, dying, hedeclined to die. It was stark madness, perhaps, but in the very grip ofDeath he defied Death and refused to die.
He closed his eyes and composed himself with infinite precaution. Hesteeled himself to keep above the suffocating languor that lapped like arising tide through all the wells of his being. It was very like a sea,this deadly languor, that rose and rose and drowned his consciousness bitby bit. Sometimes he was all but submerged, swimming through oblivionwith a faltering stroke; and again, by some strange alchemy of soul, hewould find another shred of will and strike out more strongly.
Without movement he lay on his back, and he could hear, slowly drawingnear and nearer, the wheezing intake and output of the sick wolf'sbreath. It drew closer, ever closer, through an infinitude of time, andhe did not move. It was at his ear. The harsh dry tongue grated likesandpaper against his cheek. His hands shot out--or at least he willedthem to shoot out. The fingers were curved like talons, but they closedon empty air. Swiftness and certitude require strength, and the man hadnot this strength.
The patience of the wolf was terrible. The man's patience was no lessterrible. For half a day he lay motionless, fighting off unconsciousnessand waiting for the thing that was to feed upon him and upon which hewished to feed. Sometimes the languid sea rose over him and he dreamedlong dreams; but ever through it all, waking and dreaming, he waited forthe wheezing breath and the harsh caress of the tongue.
He did not hear the breath, and he slipped slowly from some dream to thefeel of the tongue along his hand. He waited. The fangs pressed softly;the pressure increased; the wolf was exerting its last strength in aneffort to sink teeth in the food for which it had waited so long. Butthe man had waited long, and the lacerated hand closed on the jaw.Slowly, while the wolf struggled feebly and the hand clutched feebly, theother hand crept across to a grip. Five minutes later the whole weightof the man's body was on top of the wolf. The hands had not sufficientstrength to choke the wolf, but the face of the man was pressed close tothe throat of the wolf and the mouth of the man was full of hair. At theend of half an hour the man was aware of a warm trickle in his throat. Itwas not pleasant. It was like molten lead being forced into his stomach,and it was forced by his will alone. Later the man rolled over on hisback and slept.
* * * * *
There were some members of a scientific expedition on the whale-ship_Bedford_. From the deck they remarked a strange object on the shore. Itwas moving down the beach toward the water. They were unable to classifyit, and, being scientific men, they climbed into the whale-boat alongsideand went ashore to see. And they saw something that was alive but whichcould hardly be called a man. It was blind, unconscious. It squirmedalong the ground like some monstrous worm. Most of its efforts wereineffectual, but it was persistent, and it writhed and twisted and wentahead perhaps a score of feet an hour.
* * * * *
Three weeks afterward the man lay in a bunk on the whale-ship _Bedford_,and with tears streaming down his wasted cheeks told who he was and whathe had undergone. He also babbled incoherently of his mother, of sunnySouthern California, and a home among the orange groves and flowers.
The days were not many after that when he sat at table with thescientific men and ship's officers. He gloated over the spectacle of somuch food, watching it anxiously as it went into the mouths of others.With the disappearance of each mouthful an expression of deep regret
cameinto his eyes. He was quite sane, yet he hated those men at mealtime. Hewas haunted by a fear that the food would not last. He inquired of thecook, the cabin-boy, the captain, concerning the food stores. Theyreassured him countless times; but he could not believe them, and priedcunningly about the lazarette to see with his own eyes.
It was noticed that the man was getting fat. He grew stouter with eachday. The scientific men shook their heads and theorized. They limitedthe man at his meals, but still his girth increased and he swelledprodigiously under his shirt.
The sailors grinned. They knew. And when the scientific men set a watchon the man, they knew too. They saw him slouch for'ard after breakfast,and, like a mendicant, with outstretched palm, accost a sailor. Thesailor grinned and passed him a fragment of sea biscuit. He clutched itavariciously, looked at it as a miser looks at gold, and thrust it intohis shirt bosom. Similar were the donations from other grinning sailors.
The scientific men were discreet. They let him alone. But they privilyexamined his bunk. It was lined with hardtack; the mattress was stuffedwith hardtack; every nook and cranny was filled with hardtack. Yet hewas sane. He was taking precautions against another possible famine--thatwas all. He would recover from it, the scientific men said; and he did,ere the _Bedford's_ anchor rumbled down in San Francisco Bay.