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Jack London. To build a fire"He was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things, and not in the significances." ---------------------- DAY HAD BROKEN cold and gray, exceedingly cold and gray,when the man turned aside from the main Yukon trail and climbedthe high earth-bank, where a dim and little-travelled trail ledeastward through the fat spruce timberland. It was a steep bank,and he paused for breath at the top, excusing the act to himselfby looking at his watch. It was nine o'clock. There was no sunnor hind of sun, though there was not a cloud in the sky. It wasa clear day, and yet there seemed an intangible pall over theface of things, a subtle gloom that made the day dark, and thatwas due to the absence of sun. This fact did not worry the man.He was used to the lack of sun. It had been days since he hadseen the sun, and he knew that a few more days must pass beforethat cheerful orb, due south, would just peep above the sky lineand dip immediately from view. The man flung a look back along the way he had come. TheYukon lay a mile wide and hidden under three feet of ice. On topof this ice were as many feet of snow. It was all pure white,rolling in gentle undulations where the ice jams of the freeze-uphad formed. North and south, as far as his eye could see, it wasunbroken white, save for a dark hairline that curved and twistedfrom around the spruce-covered island to the south, and thatcurved and twisted away into the north, where it disappearedbehind another spruce-covered island. This dark hairline was thetrail---the main trail--that led south five hundred miles to theChilcoot Pass, Dyea, and salt water; and that led north seventymiles to Dawson, and still on to the north a thousand miles toNulato, and finally to St. Michael, on Bearing Sea, a thousandmiles and half a thousand more. But all this---the mysterious, far-reaching hairline trail,the absence of sun from the sky, the tremendous cold, and thestrangeness and weirdness of it all--made no impression on theman. It was not because he was long used to it. He was a newcomerin the land, a "chechaquo", and this was his first winter. Thetrouble with him was that he was without imagination. He wasquick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things,and not in the significances. Fifty degrees below zero meanteighty odd degrees of frost. Such fact impressed him as beingcold and uncomfortable, and that was all. It did not lead him tomeditate upon his frailty in general, able only to live withincertain narrow limits of heat and cold; and from there on it didnot lead him to the conjectural field of immortality and man'splace in the universe. Fifty degrees below zero stood for a biteof frost that hurt and that must be guarded against by the use ofmittens, ear flaps, warm moccasins, and thick socks. Fiftydegrees below zero was to him just precisely fifty degrees belowzero. That there should be anything more to it than that was athought that never entered his head. As he turned to go, he spat speculatively. There was asharp, explosive crackle that startled him. He spat again. Andagain, in the air, before it could fall to the snow, the spittlecrackled. He knew that at fifty below spittle crackled on thesnow, but this spittle had crackled in the air. Undoubtedly itwas colder than fifty below--how much colder he did not know. Butthe temperature did not matter. He was bound for the old claim onthe left fork of Henderson Creek, where the boys were already.They had come over across the divide from the Indian Creekcountry, while he had come the roundabout way to take a look atthe possibility of getting out logs in the spring from theislands in the Yukon. He would be in to camp by six o'clock; abit after dark, it ws true, but the boys would be there, a firewould be going, and a hot supper would be ready. As for lunch, hepressed his hand against the protruding bundle under his jacket.It was also under his shirt, wrapped up in a handkerchief andlying against the naked skin. It was the only way to keep thebiscuits from freezing. He smiled agreeably to himself as hethought of those biscuits, each cut open and sopped in bacongrease, and each enclosing a generous slice of fried bacon. He plunged in among the big spruce trees. The trail wasfaint. A foot of snow had fallen since the last sled had passedover, and he was glad he was without a sled, travelling light. Infact, he carried nothing but the lunch wrapped in thehandkerchief. He was surprised, however, at the cold. Itcertainly was cold, he concluded, as he rubbed his numb nose andcheekbones with his mittened hand. He was a warm-whiskered man,but the hair on his face did not protect the high cheekbones andthe eager nose that thrust itself aggressively into the frostyair. At the man's heels trotted a dog, a big native husky, theproper wolf dog, gray-coated and without any visible ortemperamental difference from its brother, the wild wolf. Theanimal was depressed by the tremendous cold. It knew that it wasno time for travelling. Its instinct told it a truer tale thanwas told to the man by the man's judgement. In reality, it wasnot merely colder than fifty below zero; it was colder than sixtybelow, than seventy below. It was seventy-five below zero. Sincethe freezing point is thirty-two above zero, it meant that onehundred and seven degrees of frost obtained. The dog did not knowanything about thermometers. Possibly in its brain there was nosharp consciousness of a condition of very cold such as was inthe man's brain. But the brute had its instinct. It experienced avague but menacing apprehension that subdued it and made it slinkalong at the man's heels, and that made it question eagerly everyunwonted movement of the man as if expecting him to go into campor to seek shelter somewhere and build a fire. The dog hadlearned fire and it wanted fire, or else to burrow under the snowand cuddle its warmth away from the air The frozen moisture of its (i.e. the dog's) breathing hadsettled on its fur in a fine powder of frost, and especially wereits jowls, muzzle, and eyelashes whitened by its crystalledbreath. The man's red beard and mustache were likewise frosted,but more solidly, the deposit taking the form of ice andincreasing with every warm, moist breath he exhaled. Also, theman was chewing tobacco and the muzzle of ice held his lips sorigidly that he was unable to clear his chin when he expelled thejuice. The result was that a crystal beard of the color andsolidity of amber was increasing its length on his chin. If hefell down it would shatter itself, like glass, into brittlefragments. But he did not mind the appendage. It was the penaltyall tobacco chewers paid in that country, and he had been outbefore in two cold snaps. they had not been so cold as this, heknew, but by the spirit thermometer at Sixty Mile he knew theyhad registered at fifty below and at fifty-five. He held on through the level stretch of woods for severalmiles, crossed a wide flat of nigger heads, and dropped down abank to the frozen bed of a small stream. This was HendersonCreek, and he knew he was ten miles from the forks. He looked athis watch. It was ten o'clock. He was making four miles an hour,and he calculated that he would arrive at the forks at half-pasttwelve. He decided to celebrate that event by eating his lunchthere. The dog dropped in again at his heels, with a tail droopingdiscouragement, as the man sung along the creek bed. The furrowof the old sled trail was plainly visible, but a dozen inches ofsnow covered the marks of the last runners. In a month no man hadcome up or down that silent creek. The man held steadily on. Hewas not much given to thinking, and just then particularly he hadnothing to think about save that he would eat lunch at the forksand that at six o'clock he would be in camp with the boys. Therewas nobody to talk to; and, had there been, speech would havebeen impossible because of the ice muzzle on his mouth. so hecontinued monotonously to chew tobacco and to increase the lengthof his amber beard. Once in a while the thought reiterated itself that it wasvery cold and that he had never experienced such cold. As hewalked along he rubbed his cheekbones and nose with the back ofhis mittened hand. He did this automatically, now and againchanging hands. But, rub as he would, the instant he stopped hischeekbones went numb, and the following instant the end of hisnose went numb. He was sure to frost his cheeks; he knew that,and experienced a pang of regret that he had not devised a nosestrap of the sort Bud wore in cold snaps. Such a strap passedacross the cheeks, as well, and saved them. But it didn't mattermuch, after all. What were frosted cheeks? a bit painful, thatwas all; they were never serious. Empty as the man's mind was of thoughts, he was keenlyobservant, and he noticed the changes in the creek, the curvesand bends and timber jams, and always he sharply noted where heplaced his feet. Once, coming around a bend, he shied abruptly,like a startled horse, curved away from the place where he hadbeen walking, and retreated several paces back along the trail.The creek he knew was frozen clear to the bottom---no creek couldcontain water in that arctic winter--but he knew also that therewere springs that bubbled out from the hillsides and ran alongunder the snow and on top the ice of the creek. He knew that thecoldest snaps never froze these springs, and he knew likewisetheir danger. They were traps. They hid pools of water under thesnow that might be three inches deep, or three feet. Sometimes askin of ice half an inch thick covered them, and in turn wascovered by the snow. Sometimes there were alternate layers ofwater and ice skin, so that when one broke through he kept onbreaking through for a while, sometimes wetting himself to thewaist. That was why he had shied in such panic. He had felt thegive under his feet and heard the crackle of a snow-hidden iceskin. And to get his feet wet in such a temperature meant troubleand danger. At the very least it meant delay, for he would beforced to stop and build a fire, and under its protection to barehis feet while he dried his socks and moccasins. He stood andstudied the creek bed and its banks, and decided that the flow ofwater came from the right. He reflected awhile, rubbing his noseand cheeks, then skirted to the left, stepping gingerly andtesting the footing for each step. Once clear of the danger, hetook a fresh chew of tobacco and swung along at his four-milegait. Continuing with Jack London's "To Build A Fire". the dangerof falling through the ice has become a factor. In the course of the next two hours he came upon severalsimilar traps. Usually the snow above the hidden pools had asunken, candied appearance that advertised the danger. Onceagain, however, he had a close call; and once, suspecting danger,he compelled the dog to go on in front. The dog did not want togo. It hung back until the man shoved it forward, and then itwent quickly across the white, unbroken surface. Suddenly itbroke through, floundered to one side, and got away to firmerfooting. It had wet its forefeet and legs, and almost immediatelythe water that clung to it turned to ice. It made quick effortsto lick the ice off its legs, then dropped down in the snow andbegan to bite out the ice that had formed between the toes. Thiswas a matter of instinct. To permit the ice to remain would meansore feet. It did not know this. It merely obeyed the mysteriousprompting that arose from the deep crypts of its being. But theman knew, having achieved a judgement on the subject, and heremoved the mitten from his right hand and helped tear out theice particles. He did not expose his fingers more than a minute,and was astonished at the swift numbness that smote them. Itcertainly was cold. He pulled on the mitten hastily, and beat thehand savagely across his chest. At twelve o'clock the day was at its brightest. Yet the sunwas too far south on its winter journey to clear the horizon. Thebulge of the earth intervened between it and Henderson Creek,where the man walked under a clear sky at noon and cast noshadow. At half-past twelve, to the minute, he arrived at theforks of the creek. He was pleased at the speed he had made. Ifhe kept it up, he would certainly be with the boys by six. Heunbuttoned his jacket and shirt and drew forth his lunch. Theaction consumed no more than a quarter of a minute, yet in thatbrief moment the numbness laid hold of his exposed fingers. Hedid not put the mitten on, but, instead, struck the fingers adozen sharp smashes against his leg. Then he sat down on a snow-covered log to eat. The sting that followed upon the striking ofhis fingers against his leg ceased so quickly that he wasstartled. He had had no chance to take a bit of biscuit. Hestruck the fingers repeatedly and returned them to the mitten,baring the other hand for the purpose of eating. He tried to takea mouthful, but the ice muzzle prevented. He had forgotten tobuild a fire and thaw out. He chuckled at his foolishness, and ashe chuckled he noted that the stinging which had first come tohis toes when he sat down was already passing away. He wonderedwhether the toes were warm or numb. He moved them inside themoccasins and decided that they were numb. He pulled the mitten on hurriedly and stood up. He was a bitfrightened. He stamped up and down until the stinging returned tohis feet. It certainly was cold, was his thought. That man fromSulpher Creek had spoken the truth when telling how cold itsometimes got in the country. And he had laughed at him at thetime! That showed one must not be too sure of things. There wasno mistake about it, it *was* cold. He strode up and down,stamping his feet and threshing his arms, until reassured by thereturning warmth. Then he got out matches and proceeded to make afire. >From the undergrowth, where high water of the previousspring had lodged a supply of seasoned twigs, he got hisfirewood. Working carefully from a small beginning, he soon had aroaring fire, over which he thawed the ice from his face and inthe protection of which he ate his biscuits. For the moment thecold of space was outwitted. The dog took satisfaction in thefire, stretching out close enough for warmth and far enough awayto escape being singed. When the man had finished, he filled his pipe and took hiscomfortable time over a smoke. Then he pulled on his mittens,settled the ear flaps of his cap firmly about his ears, and tookthe creek trail up the left fork. The dog was disappointed andyearned back toward the fire. The man did not know cold. Possiblyall the generations of his ancestry had been ignorant of cold, ofreal cold, of cold one hundred and seven degrees below freezingpoint. But the dog knew; all its ancestry knew, and it hadinherited the knowledge. And it knew that it was not good to walkabroad in such fearful cold. It was the time to lie snug in ahole in the snow and wait for a curtain of cloud to be drawnacross the face of outer space whence this cold came. On theother hand, there was no keen intimacy between the dog and theman. The one was the toil slave of the other, and the onlycaresses it had ever received were the caresses of the whip lashand of harsh and menacing throat sounds that threatened the whiplash. So the dog made no effort to communicate its apprehensionto the man. It was not concerned in the welfare of the man; itwas for its own sake that it yearned back toward the fire. Butthe man whistled, and spoke to it with the sound of whip lashes,and the dog swung in at the man's heels and followed after. The man took a chew of tobacco and proceeded to start a newamber beard. Also, his moist breath quickly powdered with whitehis mustache, eyebrows, and lashes. There did not seem to be somany springs on the left fork of the Henderson, and for half anhour the man saw no signs of any. And then it happened. At aplace where there were no signs, where the soft, unbroken snowseemed to advertise solidity beneath, the man broke through. Itwas not deep. He wet himself halfway to the knees before hefloundered out to the firm crust. He was angry, and cursed his luck aloud. He had hoped to getinto camp with the boys at six o'clock, and this would delay himan hour, for he would have to build a fire and dry out hisfootgear. This was imperative at that low temperature--for heknew that much; and he turned aside to the bank, which heclimbed. On top, tangled in the underbrush about the trunks ofseveral small spruce trees, was a high water deposit of dryfirewood--sticks and twigs, principally, but also larger portionsof seasoned branches and fine, dry, last year's grasses. He threwdown several large pieces on top of the snow. This served for afoundation and prevented the young flame from drowning itself inthe snow it otherwise would melt. The flame he got by touching amatch to a small shred of birch bark that he took from hispocket. This burned even more readily than paper. Placing it onthe foundation, he fed the young flame with wisps of dry grassand with the tiniest dry twigs. He worked slowly and carefully, keenly aware of his danger.Gradually, as the flame grew stronger, he increased the size ofthe twigs with which he fed it. He squatted in the snow, pullingthe twigs out from their entanglement in the brush and feedingdirectly to the flame. He knew there must be no failure. When itis seventy-five below zero, a man must not fail in his firstattempt to build a fire---that is, if his feet are wet. If hisfeet are dry, and he fails, he can run along the trail for half amile and restore his circulation. But the circulation of wet andfreezing feet cannot be restored by running when it is seventy-five below. No matter how fast he runs, the wet feet will freezethe harder. All this the man knew. The old-timer on Sulphur Creek hadtold him about it the previous fall, and now he was appreciatingthe advice. Already all sensation had gone out of his feet. Tobuild the fire he had been forced to remove his mittens, and thefingers had quickly gone numb. His pace of four miles an hour hadkept his heart pumping blood to the surface of his body and toall the extremities. But the instant he stopped, the action ofthe pump eased down. The cold of space smote the unprotected tipof the planet, and he, being on that unprotected tip, receivedthe full force of the blow. the blood of his body recoiled beforeit. The blood was alive, like the dog, and like the dog it wantedto hide away and cover itself up from the fearful cold. So longas he walked four miles an hour, he pumped that blood, willy-nilly, to the surface; but now it ebbed away and sank down intothe recesses of his body. The extremities were the first to feelits absence. His wet feet froze the faster, and his exposedfingers numbed the faster, though they had not yet begun tofreeze. Nose and cheeks were already freezing, while the skin ofall his body chilled as it lost its blood. But he was safe. Toes and nose and cheeks would be onlytouched by the frost, for the fire was beginning to burn withstrength. He was feeding it with twigs the size of his finger. Inanother minute he would be able to feed it with branches the sizeof his wrist, and then he could remove his wet footgear, and,while it dried, he could keep his naked feet warm by the fire,rubbing them at first, of course, with snow. The fire was asuccess. He was safe. He remembered the advice of the old-timeron Sulphur Creek, and smiled. The old-timer had been very seriousin laying down the law that no man must travel alone in theKlondike after fifty below. Well, here he was; he had had theaccident; he was alone; and he had saved himself. Those old-timers were rather womanish, some of them, he thought. All a manhad to do was to keep his head, and he was all right. Any man whowas a man could travel alone. But it was surprising, the rapiditywith which his cheeks and nose were freezing. And he had notthought his fingers could go lifeless in so short a time.Lifeless they were, for he could scarcely make them move togetherto grip a twig, and they seemed remote from his body and fromhim. When he touched a twig, he had to look and see whether ornot he had hold of it. The wires were pretty well down betweenhim and his finger ends. All of which counted for little. There was the fire,snapping and crackling and promising life with every dancingflame. He started to untie his moccasins. They were coated withice; the thick German socks were like sheaths of iron halfway tothe knees; and the moccasin strings were like rods of steel alltwisted and knotted as by some conflagration. For a moment hetugged with his numb fingers, then, realizing the folly of it, hedrew his sheath knife. But before he could cut the strings, it happened. It was hisown fault or, rather, his mistake. He should not have built thefire under the spruce tree. He should have built it in the open.But it had been easier to pull the twigs from the brush and dropthem directly on the fire. Now the tree under which he had donethis carried a weight of snow on its boughs. No wind had blownfor weeks, and each bough was fully freighted. Each time he hadpulled on a twig he had communicated a slight agitation to thetree--an imperceptible agitation, so far as he was concerned, butan agitation sufficient to bring about the disaster. High up inthe tree one bough capsized its load of snow. This fell on theboughs beneath, capsizing them. This process continued, spreadingout and involving the whole tree. It grew like an avalanche, andit descended without warning upon the man and the fire, and thefire was blotted out! Where it had burned was a mantle of freshand disordered snow. The man was shocked. It was as though he had just heard hisown sentence of death. For a moment he sat and stared at the spotwhere the fire had been. Then he grew very calm. Perhaps the old-timer on Sulphur Creek was right. If he had only had a trail matehe would have been in no danger now. The trail mate could havebuilt the fire. Well, it was up to him to build a fire overagain, and this second time there must be no failure. Even if hesucceeded, he would most likely lose some toes. His feet must bebadly frozen by now, and there would be some time before thesecond fire was ready. Such were his thoughts, but he did not sit and think them.He was busy all the time they were passing through his mind. Hemade a new foundation for a fire, this time in the open, where notreacherous tree could blot it out. Next he gathered dry grassesand tiny twigs from the high water flotsam. He could not bringhis fingers together to pull them out, but he was able to gatherthem by the handful. In this way he got many rotten twigs andbits of green moss that were undesirable, but it was the best hecould do. He worked methodically, even collecting an armful ofthe larger branches to be used later when the fire gatheredstrength. And all the while the dog sat and watched him, acertain yearning wistfulness in its eyes, for it looked upon himas the fire provider, and the fire was slow in coming. When all was ready, the man reached in his pocket for asecond piece of birch bark. He knew the bark was there, and,though he could not feel it with his fingers, he could hear itscrisp rustling as he fumbled for it. Try as he would, he couldnot clutch hold of it. And all the time, in his consciousness,was the knowledge that each instant his feet were freezing. Thisthought tended to put him in a panic, but he fought against itand kept calm. He pulled on his mittens with his teeth, andthrashed his arms back and forth, beating his hands with all hismight against his sides. He did this sitting down, and he stoodup to do it; and all the while the dog sat in the snow, its wolfbrush of a tail curled around warmly over its forefeet, its sharpwolf ears pricked forward intently as it watched the man. And theman, as he beat and threshed with his arms and hands, felt agreat surge of envy as he regarded the creature that was warm andsecure in its natural covering. After a time he was aware of the first faraway signals ofsensation in his beaten fingers. The faint tingling grew strongertill it evolved into a stinging ache that was excruciating, butwhich the man hailed with satisfaction. He stripped the mittenfrom his right hand and fetched forth the birch bark. The exposedfingers were quickly going numb again. Next he brought out hisbunch of sulphur matches. But the tremendous cold had alreadydriven the life out of his fingers. In his effort to separate onematch from the others, the whole bunch fell in the snow. He triedto pick it out of the snow, but failed. The dead fingers couldneither touch nor clutch. He was very careful. He drove thethought of his freezing feet, and nose, and cheeks, out of hismind, devoting his whole soul to the matches. He watched, usingthe sense of vision in place of that of touch, and when he sawhis fingers on each side the bunch, he closed them--that is, hewilled to close them, for the wires were down, and the fingersdid not obey. He pulled the mitten on the right hand, and beat itfiercely against his knee. Then, with both mittened hands, hescooped the bunch of matches, along with much snow, into his lap.Yet he was no better off. After some manipulation he managed to get the bunch betweenthe heels of his mittened hands. In this fashion he carried it tohis mouth. The ice crackled and snapped when by a violent efforthe opened his mouth. He drew the lower jaw in, curled the upperlip out of the way, and scraped the bunch with his upper teeth inorder to separate a match. He succeeded in getting one, which hedropped on his lap. He was no better off. He could not pick itup. Then he devised a way. He picked it up in his teeth andscratched it on his leg. Twenty times he scratched before hesucceeded in lighting it. As if flamed he held it with his teethto the birch bark. But the burning brimstone went up his nostrilsand into his lungs, causing him to cough spasmodically. The matchfell into the snow and went out. The old-timer on Sulphur Creek was right, he thought in themoment of controlled despair that ensued: after fifty below, aman should travel with a partner. He beat his hands, but failedin exciting any sensation. Suddenly he bared both hands, removingthe mittens with his teeth. He caught the whole bunch between theheels of his hands. His arm muscles not being frozen enabled himto press the hand heels tightly against the matches. Then hescratched the bunch along his leg. It flared into flame, seventysulphur matches at once! There was no wind to blow them out. Hekept his head to one side to escape the strangling fumes, andheld the blazing bundle to the birch bark. As he so held it, hebecame aware of sensation in his hand. His flesh ws burning. Hecould smell it. Deep down below the surface he could feel it. Thesensation developed into pain that grew acute. And still heendured it, holding the flame of the matches clumsily to the barkthat would not light readily because his own burning hands werein the way, absorbing most of the flame. At last, when he could endure no more, he jerked his handsapart. The blazing matches fell sizzling into the snow, but thebirch bark was alight. He began laying dry grasses and thetiniest twigs on the flame. He could not pick and choose, for hehad to lift the fuel between the heels of his hands. Small piecesof rotten wood and green moss clung to the twigs, and he bit themoff as well as he could with his teeth. He cherished the flamecarefully and awkwardly. It meant life , and it must not perish.The withdrawal of blood from the surface of his body now made himbegin to shiver, and he grew more awkward. A large piece of greenmoss fell squarely on the little fire. He tried to poke it withhis fingers, but his shivering frame made him poke too far, andhe disrupted the nucleus of the little fire, the burning grassesand tiny twigs separating and scattering. He tried to poke themtogether again, but in spite of the tenseness of the effort, hisshivering got away with him, and the twigs were hopelesslyscattered. Each twig gushed a puff of smoke and went out. Thefire provider had failed. As he looked apathetically about him,his eyes chanced on the dog, sitting across the ruins of the firefrom him, in the snow, making restless, hunching movements,slightly lifting one forefoot and then the other, shifting itsweight back and forth on them with wistful eagerness. The sight of the dog put a wild idea into his head. Heremembered the tale of the man, caught in a blizzard, who killeda steer and crawled inside the carcass, and so was saved. Hewould kill the dog and bury his hands in the warm body until thenumbness went out of them. Then he could build another fire. Hespoke to the dog, calling it to him; but in his voice was astrange note of fear that frightened the animal, who had neverknown the man to speak in such a way before. something was thematter, and its suspicious nature sensed danger-it knew not whatdanger, but somewhere, somehow, in its brain arose anapprehension of the man. It flattened its ears down at the soundof the man's voice, and its restless, hunching movements andliftings and shiftings of its forefeet became more pronounced;but it would not come to the man. He got on his hands and kneesand crawled toward the dog. This unusual posture again excitedsuspicion, and the animal sidled mincingly away. The man sat up in the snow for a moment and struggled forcalmness. Then he pulled on his mittens, by means of his teeth,and got upon his feet. He glanced down at first in order toassure himself that he was really standing up, for the absence ofsensation in his feet left him unrelated to the earth. His erectposition in itself started to drive the webs of suspicion fromthe dog's mind; and when he spoke peremptorily, with the sound ofwhip lashes in his voice, the dog rendered its customaryallegiance and came to him. As it came within reaching distance,the man lost his control. His arms flashed out to the dog, and heexperienced genuine surprise when he discovered that his handscould not clutch, that there was neither bend nor feeling in thefingers. He had forgotten for the moment that they were frozenand that they were freezing more and more. All this happenedquickly, and before the animal could get away, he encircled itsbody with his arms. He sat down in the snow, and in this fashionheld the dog, while it snarled and whined and struggled. But it was all he could do, hold its body encircled in hisarms and sit there. He realized that he could not kill the dog.There was no way to do it. With his helpless hands he couldneither draw nor hold his sheath knife nor throttle the animal.He released it, and it plunged wildly away, with tail between itslegs, and still snarling. It halted forty feet away surveyed himcuriously, with ears sharply pricked forward. The man looked down at his hands in order to locate them,and found them hanging on the ends of his arms. It struck him ascurious that one should have to use his eyes in order to find outwhere his hands were. He began threshing his arms back and forth,beating the mittened hands against his sides. He did this forfive minutes, violently, and his heart pumped enough blood up tothe surface to put a stop to his shivering. But no sensation wasaroused in his hands. He had an impression that they hung likeweights on the ends of his arms, but when he tried to run theimpression down, he could not find it. A certain fear of death, dull and oppressive, came to him.This fear quickly became poignant as he realized that it was nolonger a mere matter of freezing his fingers and toes, or oflosing his hands and feet, but that it was a matter of life anddeath with the chances against him. This threw him into a panic,and he turned and ran up the creek bed along the old, dim trail.The dog joined in behind and kept up with him. He ran blindly,without intention, in fear such as he had never known in hislife. Slowly, as he plowed and floundered through the snow, hebegan to see things again--the banks of the creek, the old timberjams, the leafless aspens, and the sky. the running made him feelbetter. He did not shiver. Maybe, if he ran on, his feet wouldthaw out; and, anyway, if he ran far enough, he would reach campand the boys. Without doubt he would lose some fingers and toesand some of his face; but the boys would take care of him, andsave the rest of him when he got there. And at the same timethere was another thought in his mind that said he would neverget to the camp and the boys; that it was too many miles away,that the freezing had too great a start on him, and that he wouldsoon be stiff and dead. This thought he kept in the backgroundand refused to consider. Sometimes it pushed itself forward anddemanded to be heard, but he thrust it back and strove to thinkof other things. It struck him as curious that he could run at all on feet sofrozen that he could not feel them when they struck the earth andtook the weight of his body. He seemed to himself to skim alongabove the surface, and to have no connection with the earth.Somewhere he had once seen a winged Mercury, and he wondered ifMercury felt as he felt when skimming over the earth. His theory of running until he reached camp and the boys hadone flaw in it; he lacked the endurance. Several times hestumbled, and finally he tottered, crumpled up, and fell. When hetried to rise, he failed. He must sit and rest, he decided, andnext time he would merely walk and keep on going. As he sat andregained his breath, he noted that he was feeling quite warm andcomfortable. He was not shivering, and it even seemed that a warmglow had come to his chest and trunk. And yet, when he touchedhis nose or cheeks, there was no sensation. Running would notthaw them out. Nor would it thaw out his hands and feet. Then thethought came to him that the frozen portions of his body must beextending. He tried to keep this thought down, to forget it, tothink of something else; he was aware of the panicky feeling thatit caused, and he was afraid of the panic. But the thoughtasserted itself, and persisted, until it produced a vision of hisbody totally frozen. This was too much, and he made another wildrun along the trail. Once he slowed down to a walk, but thethought of the freezing extending itself made him run again. And all the time the dog ran with him, at his heels. When hefell down a second time, it curled its tail over its forefeet andsat in front of him, facing him, curiously eager and intent. Thewarmth and security of the animal angered him, and he cursed ittill it flattened down its ears appeasingly. This time theshivering came more quickly upon the man. He was losing hisbattle with the frost. It was creeping into his body from allsides. The thought of it drove him on, but he ran no more than ahundred feet, when he staggered and pitched headlong. It was hislast panic. When he had recovered his breath and control, he satup and entertained in his mind the conception of meeting deathwith dignity. However, the conception did not come to him in suchterms. His idea of it was that he had been making a fool ofhimself, running around like a chicken with its head cut off--such was the simile that occurred to him. Well, he was bound tofreeze anyway, and he might as well take it decently. With thisnew-found peace of mind came the first glimmerings of drowsiness.A good idea, he thought, to sleep off to death. It was liketaking an anesthetic. Freezing was not so bad a people thought.There were lots worse ways to die. He pictured the boys finding his body next day. Suddenly hefound himself with them, coming along the trail and looking forhimself. And, still with them, he came around a turn in the trailand found himself lying in the snow. He did not belong withhimself any more, for even then he was out of himself, standingwith the boys and looking at himself in the snow. It certainlywas cold, was his thought. When he got back to the States hecould tell the folks what real cold was. He drifted on from thisto a vision of the old-timer on Sulphur Creek. He could see himquite clearly, warm and comfortable, and smoking a pipe. Then the man drowsed off into what seemed to him the mostcomfortable and satisfying sleep he had ever known. The dog satfacing and waiting. The brief day drew to a close in a long, slowtwilight. There were no signs of a fire to be made, and, besides,never in the dog's experience had it known a man to sit like thatin the snow and make no fire. As the twilight drew on, its eageryearning for the fire mastered it, and with a great lifting andshifting of forefeet, it whined softly, then flattened out itsears down in anticipation of being chidden by the man. But theman remained silent. Later the dog whined loudly. And still laterit crept close to the man and caught the scent of death. Thismade the animal bristle and back away. A little longer itdelayed, howling under the stars that leaped and danced and shonebrightly in the cold sky. Then it turned and trotted up the trailin the direction of the camp it knew, where were the other foodproviders and fire providers. THE ENDis body. The extremities were the first to feelits absence. His wet feet froze the faster, and his exposedfingers numbed the faster, though they had not yet begun tofreeze. Nose and cheeks were already freezing, while the skin ofall his body chilled as it lost its blood. But he was safe. Toes and nose and cheeks would be onlytouched by the frost, for the fire was beginning to burn withstrength. He was feeding it with twigs the size of his finger. Inanother minute he would be able to feed it with branches the sizeof his wrist, and then he could remove his wet footgear, and,while it dried, he could keep his naked feet warm by the fire,rubbing them at first, of course, with snow. The fire was asuccess. He was safe. He remembered the advice of the old-timeron Sulphur Creek, and smiled. The old-timer had been very seriousin laying down the law that no man must travel alone in theKlondike after fifty below. Well, here he was; he had had theaccident; he was alone; and he had saved himself. Those old-timers were rather womanish, some of them, he thought. All a manhad to do was to keep his head, and he was all right. Any man whowas a man could travel alone. But it was surprising, the rapiditywith which his cheeks and nose were freezing. And he had notthought his fingers could go lifeless in so short a time.Lifeless they were, for he could scarcely make them move togetherto grip a twig, and they seemed remote from his body and fromhim. When he touched a twig, he had to look and see whether ornot he had hold of it. The wires were pretty well down betweenhim and his finger ends. All of which counted for little. There was the fire,snapping and crackling and promising life with every dancingflame. He started to untie his moccasins. They were coated withice; the thick German socks were like sheaths of iron halfway tothe knees; and the moccasin strings were like rods of steel alltwisted and knotted as by some conflagration. For a moment hetugged with his numb fingers, then, realizing the folly of it, hedrew his sheath knife. But before he could cut the strings, it happened. It was hisown fault or, rather, his mistake. He should not have built thefire under the spruce tree. He should have built it in the open.But it had been easier to pull the twigs from the brush and dropthem directly on the fire. Now the tree under which he had donethis carried a weight of snow on its boughs. No wind had blownfor weeks, and each bough was fully freighted. Each time he hadpulled on a twig he had communicated a slight agitation to thetree--an imperceptible agitation, so far as he was concerned, butan agitation sufficient to bring about the disaster. High up inthe tree one bough capsized its load of snow. This fell on theboughs beneath, capsizing them. This process continued, spreadingout and involving the whole tree. It grew like an avalanche, andit descended without warning upon the man and the fire, and thefire was blotted out! Where it had burned was a mantle of freshand disordered snow. The man was shocked. It was as though he had just heard hisown sentence of death. For a moment he sat and stared at the spotwhere the fire had been. Then he grew very calm. Perhaps the old-timer on Sulphur Creek was right. If he had only had a trail matehe would have been in no danger now. The trail mate could havebuilt the fire. Well, it was up to him to build a fire overagain, and this second time there must be no failure. Even if hesucceeded, he would most likely lose some toes. His feet must bebadly frozen by now, and there would be some time before thesecond fire was ready. Such were his thoughts, but he did not sit and think them.He was busy all the time they were passing through his mind. Hemade a new foundation for a fire, this time in the open, where notreacherous tree could blot it out. Next he gathered dry grassesand tiny twigs from the high water flotsam. He could not bringhis fingers together to pull them out, but he was able to gatherthem by the handful. In this way he got many rotten twigs andbits of green moss that were undesirable, but it was the best hecould do. He worked methodically, even collecting an armful ofthe larger branches to be used later when the fire gatheredstrength. And all the while the dog sat and watched him, acertain yearning wistfulness in its eyes, for it looked upon himas the fire provider, and the fire was slow in coming. When all was ready, the man reached in his pocket for asecond piece of birch bark. He knew the bark was there, and,though he could not feel it with his fingers, he could hear itscrisp rustling as he fumbled for it. Try as he would, he couldnot clutch hold of it. And all the time, in his consciousness,was the knowledge that each instant his feet were freezing. Thisthought tended to put him in a panic, but he fought against itand kept calm. He pulled on his mittens with his teeth, andthrashed his arms back and forth, beating his hands with all hismight against his sides. He did this sitting down, and he stoodup to do it; and all the while the dog sat in the snow, its wolfbrush of a tail curled around warmly over its forefeet, its sharpwolf ears pricked forward intently as it watched the man. And theman, as he beat and threshed with his arms and hands, felt agreat surge of envy as he regarded the creature that was warm andsecure in its natural covering. After a time he was aware of the first faraway signals ofsensation in his beaten fingers. The faint tingling grew strongertill it evolved into a stinging ache that was excruciating, butwhich the man hailed with satisfaction. He stripped the mittenfrom his right hand and fetched forth the birch bark. The exposedfingers were quickly going numb again. Next he brought out hisbunch of sulphur matches. But the tremendous cold had alreadydriven the life out of his fingers. In his effort to separate onematch from the others, the whole bunch fell in the snow. He triedto pick it out of the snow, but failed. The dead fingers couldneither touch nor clutch. He was very careful. He drove thethought of his freezing feet, and nose, and cheeks, out of hismind, devoting his whole soul to the matches. He watched, usingthe sense of vision in place of that of touch, and when he sawhis fingers on each side the bunch, he closed them--that is, hewilled to close them, for the wires were down, and the fingersdid not obey. He pulled the mitten on the right hand, and beat itfiercely against his knee. Then, with both mittened hands, hescooped the bunch of matches, along with much snow, into his lap.Yet he was no better off. After some manipulation he managed to get the bunch betweenthe heels of his mittened hands. In this fashion he carried it tohis mouth. The ice crackled and snapped when by a violent efforthe opened his mouth. He drew the lower jaw in, curled the upperlip out of the way, and scraped the bunch with his upper teeth inorder to separate a match. He succeeded in getting one, which hedropped on his lap. He was no better off. He could not pick itup. Then he devised a way. He picked it up in his teeth andscratched it on his leg. Twenty times he scratched before hesucceeded in lighting it. As if flamed he held it with his teethto the birch bark. But the burning brimstone went up his nostrilsand into his lungs, causing him to cough spasmodically. The matchfell into the snow and went out. The old-timer on Sulphur Creek was right, he thought in themoment of controlled despair that ensued: after fifty below, aman should travel with a partner. He beat his hands, but failedin exciting any sensation. Suddenly he bared both hands, removingthe mittens with his teeth. He caught the whole bunch between theheels of his hands. His arm muscles not being frozen enabled himto press the hand heels tightly against the matches. Then hescratched the bunch along his leg. It flared into flame, seventysulphur matches at once! There was no wind to blow them out. Hekept his head to one side to escape the strangling fumes, andheld the blazing bundle to the birch bark. As he so held it, hebecame aware of sensation in his hand. His flesh ws burning. Hecould smell it. Deep down below the surface he could feel it. Thesensation developed into pain that grew acute. And still heendured it, holding the flame of the matches clumsily to the barkthat would not light readily because his own burning hands werein the way, absorbing most of the flame. At last, when he could endure no more, he jerked his handsapart. The blazing matches fell sizzling into the snow, but thebirch bark was alight. He began laying dry grasses and thetiniest twigs on the flame. He could not pick and choose, for hehad to lift the fuel between the heels of his hands. Small piecesof rotten wood and green moss clung to the twigs, and he bit themoff as well as he could with his teeth. He cherished the flamecarefully and awkwardly. It meant life , and it must not perish.The withdrawal of blood from the surface of his body now made himbegin to shiver, and he grew more awkward. A large piece of greenmoss fell squarely on the little fire. He tried to poke it withhis fingers, but his shivering frame made him poke too far, andhe disrupted the nucleus of the little fire, the burning grassesand tiny twigs separating and scattering. He tried to poke themtogether again, but in spite of the tenseness of the effort, hisshivering got away with him, and the twigs were hopelesslyscattered. Each twig gushed a puff of smoke and went out. Thefire provider had failed. As he looked apathetically about him,his eyes chanced on the dog, sitting across the ruins of the firefrom him, in the snow, making restless, hunching movements,slightly lifting one forefoot and then the other, shifting itsweight back and forth on them with wistful eagerness. The sight of the dog put a wild idea into his head. Heremembered the tale of the man, caught in a blizzard, who killeda steer and crawled inside the carcass, and so was saved. Hewould kill the dog and bury his hands in the warm body until thenumbness went out of them. Then he could build another fire. Hespoke to the dog, calling it to him; but in his voice was astrange note of fear that frightened the animal, who had neverknown the man to speak in such a way before. something was thematter, and its suspicious nature sensed danger-it knew not whatdanger, but somewhere, somehow, in its brain arose anapprehension of the man. It flattened its ears down at the soundof the man's voice, and its restless, hunching movements andliftings and shiftings of its forefeet became more pronounced;but it would not come to the man. He got on his hands and kneesand crawled toward the dog. This unusual posture again excitedsuspicion, and the animal sidled mincingly away. The man sat up in the snow for a moment and struggled forcalmness. Then he pulled on his mittens, by means of his teeth,and got upon his feet. He glanced down at first in order toassure himself that he was really standing up, for the absence ofsensation in his feet left him unrelated to the earth. His erectposition in itself started to drive the webs of suspicion fromthe dog's mind; and when he spoke peremptorily, with the sound ofwhip lashes in his voice, the dog rendered its customaryallegiance and came to him. As it came within reaching distance,the man lost his control. His arms flashed out to the dog, and heexperienced genuine surprise when he discovered that his handscould not clutch, that there was neither bend nor feeling in thefingers. He had forgotten for the moment that they were frozenand that they were freezing more and more. All this happenedquickly, and before the animal could get away, he encircled itsbody with his arms. He sat down in the snow, and in this fashionheld the dog, while it snarled and whined and struggled. But it was all he could do, hold its body encircled in hisarms and sit there. He realized that he could not kill the dog.There was no way to do it. With his helpless hands he couldneither draw nor hold his sheath knife nor throttle the animal.He released it, and it plunged wildly away, with tail between itslegs, and still snarling. It halted forty feet away surveyed himcuriously, with ears sharply pricked forward. The man looked down at his hands in order to locate them,and found them hanging on the ends of his arms. It struck him ascurious that one should have to use his eyes in order to find outwhere his hands were. He began threshing his arms back and forth,beating the mittened hands against his sides. He did this forfive minutes, violently, and his heart pumped enough blood up tothe surface to put a stop to his shivering. But no sensation wasaroused in his hands. He had an impression that they hung likeweights on the ends of his arms, but when he tried to run theimpression down, he could not find it. A certain fear of death, dull and oppressive, came to him.This fear quickly became poignant as he realized that it was nolonger a mere matter of freezing his fingers and toes, or oflosing his hands and feet, but that it was a matter of life anddeath with the chances against him. This threw him into a panic,and he turned and ran up the creek bed along the old, dim trail.The dog joined in behind and kept up with him. He ran blindly,without intention, in fear such as he had never known in hislife. Slowly, as he plowed and floundered through the snow, hebegan to see things again--the banks of the creek, the old timberjams, the leafless aspens, and the sky. the running made him feelbetter. He did not shiver. Maybe, if he ran on, his feet wouldthaw out; and, anyway, if he ran far enough, he would reach campand the boys. Without doubt he would lose some fingers and toesand some of his face; but the boys would take care of him, andsave the rest of him when he got there. And at the same timethere was another thought in his mind that said he would neverget to the camp and the boys; that it was too many miles away,that the freezing had too great a start on him, and that he wouldsoon be stiff and dead. This thought he kept in the backgroundand refused to consider. Sometimes it pushed itself forward anddemanded to be heard, but he thrust it back and strove to thinkof other things. It struck him as curious that he could run at all on feet sofrozen that he could not feel them when they struck the earth andtook the weight of his body. He seemed to himself to skim alongabove the surface, and to have no connection with the earth.Somewhere he had once seen a winged Mercury, and he wondered ifMercury felt as he felt when skimming over the earth. His theory of running until he reached camp and the boys hadone flaw in it; he lacked the endurance. Several times hestumbled, and finally he tottered, crumpled up, and fell. When hetried to rise, he failed. He must sit and rest, he decided, andnext time he would merely walk and keep on going. As he sat andregained his breath, he noted that he was feeling quite warm andcomfortable. He was not shivering, and it even seemed that a warmglow had come to his chest and trunk. And yet, when he touchedhis nose or cheeks, there was no sensation. Running would notthaw them out. Nor would it thaw out his hands and feet. Then thethought came to him that the frozen portions of his body must beextending. He tried to keep this thought down, to forget it, tothink of something else; he was aware of the panicky feeling thatit caused, and he was afraid of the panic. But the thoughtasserted itself, and persisted, until it produced a vision of hisbody totally frozen. This was too much, and he made another wildrun along the trail. Once he slowed down to a walk, but thethought of the freezing extending itself made him run again. And all the time the dog ran with him, at his heels. When hefell down a second time, it curled its tail over its forefeet andsat in front of him, facing him, curiously eager and intent. Thewarmth and security of the animal angered him, and he cursed ittill it flattened down its ears appeasingly. This time theshivering came more quickly upon the man. He was losing hisbattle with the frost. It was creeping into his body from allsides. The thought of it drove him on, but he ran no more than ahundred feet, when he staggered and pitched headlong. It was hislast panic. When he had recovered his breath and control, he satup and entertained in his mind the conception of meeting deathwith dignity. However, the conception did not come to him in suchterms. His idea of it was that he had been making a fool ofhimself, running around like a chicken with its head cut off--such was the simile that occurred to him. Well, he was bound tofreeze anyway, and he might as well take it decently. With thisnew-found peace of mind came the first glimmerings of drowsiness.A good idea, he thought, to sleep off to death. It was liketaking an anesthetic. Freezing was not so bad a people thought.There were lots worse ways to die. He pictured the boys finding his body next day. Suddenly hefound himself with them, coming along the trail and looking forhimself. And, still with them, he came around a turn in the trailand found himself lying in the snow. He did not belong withhimself any more, for even then he was out of himself, standingwith the boys and looking at himself in the snow. It certainlywas cold, was his thought. When he got back to the States hecould tell the folks what real cold was. He drifted on from thisto a vision of the old-timer on Sulphur Creek. He could see himquite clearly, warm and comfortable, and smoking a pipe. Then the man drowsed off into what seemed to him the mostcomfortable and satisfying sleep he had ever known. The dog satfacing and waiting. The brief day drew to a close in a long, slowtwilight. There were no signs of a fire to be made, and, besides,never in the dog's experience had it known a man to sit like thatin the snow and make no fire. As the twilight drew on, its eageryearning for the fire mastered it, and with
Date: 2016-04-22; view: 954
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