LOVE OF LIFE This out of all will remain Страница 26

KLONK of an old raven, and he wss hunger-mad. His eyes were like

live coals of fire, and as his body rocked to and fro, so rocked

his soul insid.e 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 om 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 fesh sign of dogs ajd 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 g 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 veery 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. Sometimea, 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 alo 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 aftrr that never again do I care for money. For that

day a large wisdom came t0 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 by, 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 cfawls 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 iw 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 sgagger two steps, maybe three seps,

then we fall down again. And all the time I must help u; the man

and woman. Sometimes thwy 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 crrawl 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 tohught. 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

strang
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