Книга - Звичай бiлої людини = The White Man’s Way

Звичай бiлоi людини = The White Man's Way
Jack London


Видання з паралельним текстом
Джек Лондон американский писатель, автор множества романов, повестей и рассказов. Главным источником информации для него была его жизнь – недолгая, но насыщенная, она удивляет количеством приключений, трудностей и опасностей. Потому и произведения этого замечательного писателя такие выразительные и правдивые, полные огня и чувства, а его герои навсегда покоряют сердца читателя. Наибольшую известность автору принесли «северные рассказы», герои которых всегда яркие личности, которые притягивают своей мужественностью, силой, смелостью. В эту замечательную книгу вошли лучшие произведения американского автора. Кроме того, книга станет прекрасным помощником для людей, которые изучают английский язык, ведь в ней помещено текст оригинала, а также украинский перевод.





Джек Лондон

Звичай бiлоi людини / The White Man’s Way





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 men staggered among the rough-strewn rocks. They were tired and weak, and their faces had the drawn expression of patience which comes of hardship long endured. They were heavily burdened with blanket packs which were strapped to their shoulders. Headstraps, passing across the forehead, helped support these packs. Each man carried a rifle. They walked in a stooped posture, the shoulders well forward, the head still farther forward, the eyes bent upon the ground.

“I wish we had just about two of them cartridges that’s layin’ in that cache of ourn,” said the second man.

His voice was utterly and drearily expressionless. He spoke without enthusiasm; and the first man, limping into the milky stream that foamed over the rocks, vouchsafed no reply.

The other man followed at his heels. They did not remove their footgear, though the water was icy cold—so cold that their ankles ached and their feet went numb. In peaces the water dashed against their knees, and both men staggered for footing.

The man who followed slipped on a smooth boulder, nearly fell, but recovered himself with a violent effort, at the same time uttering a sharp exclamation of pain. He seemed faint and dizzy and put out his free hand while he reeled, as though seeking support against the air. When he had steadied himself he stepped forward, but reeled again and nearly fell. Then he stood still and looked at the other man, who had never 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. The man watched him go, and though his face was expressionless as ever, his eyes were like the eyes of a wounded deer.

The other man limped up the farther bank and continued straight on without looking back. The man in the stream watched him. His lips trembled a little, so that the rough thatch of brown hair which covered them 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 did not turn. The man watched him go, limping grotesquely and lurching forward with stammering gait up the slow slope toward the soft sky line of the low-lying hill. He watched him go till he passed over the crest and disappeared. Then he turned his gaze and slowly took in the cirole of the world that remained to him now that Bill was gone.

Near the horizon the sun was smoldering dimly, almost obscured by formless mists and vapors, which gave an impression of mass and density without outline or tangibility. The man pulled out his watch, the while resting his weight on one leg. It was four o’clock, and as the season was near the last of July or first of August—he did not know the precise date within a week or two—he knew that the sun roughly marked the northwest. He looked to the south and knew that somewhere beyond those bleak hills lay the Great Bear Lake; also, he knew that in that direction the Arctic Circle cut its forbidding way across the Canadian Barrens. This stream in which he stood was a feeder to the Coppermine River, which in turn flowed north and emptied into Coronation Gulf and the Arctic Ocean. He had never been there, but he had seen it, once, on a Hudson’s Bay Company chart.

Again his gaze completed the circle of the world about him. It was not a heartening spectacle. Everywhere was soft sky line. The hills were all low-lying. There were no trees, no shrubs, no grasses—naught but a tremendous and terrible desolation that sent fear swiftly dawning into his eyes.

“Bill!” he whispered, once and twice; “Bill!”

He cowered in the midst of the milky water, as though the vastness were pressing in upon him with overwhelming force, brutally crushing him with its complacent awfulness. He began to shake as with an ague fit, till the gun fell from his hand with a splash. This served to rouse him. He fought with his fear and pulled himself together, groping in the water and recovering the weapon. He hitched his pack farther over on his left shoulder, so as to take a portion of its weight from off the injured ankle. Then he proceeded, slowly and carefully, wincing with pain, to the bank.

He did not stop. With a desperation that was madness, unmindful of the pain, he hurried up the slope to the crest of the hill over which his comrade had disappeared—more grotesque and comical by far than that limping, jerking comrade. But at the crest he saw a shallow valley, empty of life. He fought with his fear again, overcame it, hitched the pack still farther over on his left shoulder, and lurched on down the slope.

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 his feet at every step, and each time he lifted a foot the action culminated in a sucking sound as the wet moss reluctantly released its grip. He picked his way from muskeg to muskeg, and followed the other man’s footsteps along and across the rocky ledges which thrust like islets through the sea of moss.

Though alone, he was not lost. Farther on, he knew, he would come to where dead spruce and fir, very small and weazened, bordered the shore of a little lake, the titchin-nichilie,—in the tongue of the country, the “land of little sticks.” And into that lake flowed a small stream, the water of which was not milky. There was rush grass on that stream—this he remembered well—but no timber, and he would follow it till its first trickle ceased at a divide. He would cross this divide to the first trickle of another stream, flowing to the west, which he would follow until it emptied into the river Dease, and here he would find a cache under an upturned canoe and piled over with many rocks. And in this cache would be ammunition for his empty gun, fishhooks and lines, a small 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 south down the Dease to the Great Bear Lake. And south across the lake they would go, ever south, till they gained the Mackenzie. And south, still south, they would go, while the winter raced vainly after them, and the ice formed in the eddies, and the days grew chill and crisp, south to some warm Hudson’s Bay Company post, where timber grew tall and generous, and there was grub without end.

These were the thoughts of the man as he strove onward. But hard as he strove with his body, he strove equally hard with his mind, trying to think that Bill had not deserted him, that Bill would surely wait for him at the cache. He was compelled to think this thought, or else there would not be any use to strive, and he would have lain down and died. And as the dim ball of the sun sank slowly into the northwest he covered every inch—and many times—of his and Bill’s flight south before the downcoming winter. And he conned the grub of the cache and the grub of the Hudson’s Bay Company post over and over again. He had not eaten for two 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 enclosed in a bit of water. In the mouth the water melts away and the seed chews sharp and bitter. The man knew there was no nourishment in the berries, but he chewed them patiently with a hope greater than knowledge and defying experience.

At nine o’clock he stubbed his toe on a rocky ledge, and from sheer weariness and weakness staggered and fell. He lay for some time, without movement, on his side. Then he slipped out of the pack straps and clumsily dragged himself into a sitting posture. It was not yet dark, and in the lingering twilight he groped about among the rocks for shreds of dry moss. When he had gathered a heap he built a fire—a smoldering, 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 his matches. There were sixty-seven. He counted them three times to make sure. He divided them into several portions, wrapping them in oil paper, disposing of one bunch in his empty tobacco pouch, of another bunch in the inside band of his battered hat, of a third bunch under his shirt on the chest. This accomplished, a panic came upon him, and he unwrapped them all and counted them again. There were still sixty-seven.

He dried his wet footgear by the fire. The moccasins were in soggy shreds. The blanket socks were worn through in places, and his feet were raw and bleeding. His ankle was throbbing, and he gave it an examination. It had swollen to the size of his knee. He tore a long strip from one of his two blankets and bound the ankle tightly. He tore other strips and bound them about his feet to serve for both moccasins and socks. Then he drank the pot of water, steaming hot, wound his watch, and crawled between his blankets. He slept like a dead man. The brief darkness around midnight came and went. The sun arose in the northeast—at least the day dawned in that quarter, for the sun was hidden by gray clouds.

At six o’clock he awoke, quietly lying on his back. He gazed straight up into the gray sky and knew that he was hungry. As he rolled over on his elbow he was startled by a loud snort, and saw a bull caribou regarding him with alert curiosity. The animal was not more than fifty feet away, and instantly into the man’s mind leaped the vision and the savor of a caribou steak sizzling and frying over a fire. Mechanically he reached for the empty gun, drew a bead, and pulled the trigger. The bull snorted and leaped away, his hoofs rattling and clattering as he fled across the ledges.

The man cursed and flung the empty gun from him. He groaned aloud as he started 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 only through a sheer exertion of will. When he finally gained his feet, another minute or so was consumed in straightening up, so that he could stand erect as a man should stand.

He crawled up a small knoll and surveyed the prospect. There were no trees, no bushes, nothing but a gray sea of moss scarcely diversified by gray rocks, gray lakelets, and gray streamlets. The sky was gray. There was no sun nor hint of sun. He had no idea of north, and he had forgotten the way he had come to this spot the night before. But he was not lost. He knew that. Soon he would come to the land of the little sticks. He felt that it lay off to the left somewhere, not far—possibly just over the next low hill.

He went back to put his pack into shape for traveling. He assured himself of the existence of his three separate parcels of matches, though he did not stop to count them. But he did linger, debating, over a squat moose-hide sack. It was not large. He could hide it under his two hands. He knew that it weighed fifteen pounds—as much as all the rest of the pack—and it worried him. He finally set it to one side and proceeded to roll the pack. He paused to gaze at the squat moose-hide sack. He picked it up hastily with a defiant glance about him, as though the desolation were trying to rob him of it; and when he rose to his feet to 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 it was as nothing compared with the pain of his stomach. The hunger pangs were sharp. They gnawed and gnawed until he could not keep his mind steady 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 tongue and the roof of his mouth sore with their irritating bite.

He came upon a valley where rock ptarmigan rose on whirring wings from the ledges and muskegs. “Ker—ker—ker” was the cry they made. He threw stones at them but could not hit them. He placed his pack on the ground and stalked them as a cat stalks a sparrow. The sharp rocks cut through his pants legs till his knees left a trail of blood; but the hurt was lost 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, and he 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 it till it shot up in his face from its rocky nook. He made a clutch as startled as was the rise of the ptarmigan, and there remained in his hand three tail feathers. As he watched its flight he hated it, as though it had done him some terrible wrong. Then he returned and shouldered his pack.

As the day wore along he came into valleys or swales where game was more plentiful. A band of caribou passed by, twenty and odd animals, tantalizingly within rifle range. He felt a wild desire to run after them, a certitude that he could run them down. A black fox came toward him, carrying a ptarmigan in his mouth. The man shouted. It was a fearful cry, but the fox, leaping away in fright, did not drop the ptarmigan.

Late in the afternoon he followed a stream, milky with lime, which ran through sparse patches of rush grass. Grasping these rushes firmly near the root, he pulled up what resembled a young onion sprout no larger than a shingle nail. It was tender, and his teeth sank into it with a crunch that promised deliciously of food. But its fibers were tough. It was composed of stringy filaments saturated with water, like the berries, and devoid of nourishment. He threw off his pack and went into the rush grass on hands and knees, crunching and munching, like some bovine creature.

He was very weary and often wished to rest—to lie down and sleep; but he was continually driven on, not so much by his desire to gain the land of little sticks as by his hunger. He searched little ponds for frogs and dug up the earth with his nails for worms, though he knew in spite that neither frogs nor worms existed so far north.

He looked into every pool of water vainly, until, as the long twilight came on, he discovered a solitary fish, the size of a minnow, in such a pool. He plunged his arm in up to the shoulder, but it eluded him. He reached for it with both hands and stirred up the milky mud at the bottom. In his excitement he fell in, wetting himself to the waist. Then the water was too muddy to admit of his seeing the fish, and he was compelled to wait until the sediment had settled.

The pursuit was renewed, till the water was again muddied. But he could not wait. He unstrapped the tin bucket and began to bail the pool. He bailed wildly at first, splashing himself and flinging the water so short a distance that it ran back into the pool. He worked more carefully, striving to be cool, though his heart was pounding against his chest and his hands were trembling. At the end of half an hour the pool was nearly dry. Not a cupful of water remained. And there was no fish. He found a hidden crevice among the stones through which it had escaped to the adjoining and larger pool—a pool which he could not empty in a night and a day. Had he known of the crevice, he could have closed it with a rock at the beginning and the fish would have been his.

Thus he thought, and crumpled up and sank down upon the wet earth. At first he cried softly to himself, then he cried loudly to the pitiless desolation that ringed him around; and for a long time after he was shaken by great dry sobs.

He built a fire and warmed himself by drinking quarts of hot water, and made camp on a rocky ledge in the same fashion he had the night before. The last thing he did was to see that his matches were dry and to wind his watch. The blankets were wet and clammy. His ankle pulsed with pain. But he knew only that he was hungry, and through his restless sleep he dreamed of feasts and banquets and of food served and spread in all imaginable ways.

He awoke chilled and sick. There was no sun. The gray of earth and sky had become deeper, more profound. A raw wind was blowing, and the first flurries of snow were whitening the hilltops. The air about him thickened and grew white while he made a fire and boiled more water. It was wet snow, half rain, and the flakes were large and soggy. At first they melted as soon as they came in contact with the earth, but ever more fell, covering the ground, putting out the fire, spoiling his supply of moss-fuel.

This was a signal for him to strap on his pack and stumble onward, he knew not where. He was not concerned with the land of little sticks, nor with Bill and the cache under the upturned canoe by the river Dease. He was mastered by the verb “to eat.” He was hunger-mad. He took no heed of the course he pursued, so long as that course led him through the swale bottoms. He felt his way through the wet snow to the watery muskeg berries, 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 that tasted sour and he ate all he could find of it, which was not much, for it 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 blanket to sleep the broken hunger sleep. The snow turned into a cold rain. He awakened many times to feel it falling on his upturned face. Day came—a gray day and no sun. It had ceased raining. The keenness of his hunger had departed. Sensibility, as far as concerned the yearning for food, had been exhausted. There was a dull, heavy ache in his stomach, but it did not bother him so much. He was more rational, and once more he was chiefly interested in the land of little sticks and the cache by the river Dease.

He ripped the remnant of one of his blankets into strips and bound his bleeding feet. Also, he recinched the injured ankle and prepared himself for a day of travel. When he came to his pack he paused long over the squat 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 to the right to counteract the possible deviation from his true course.

Though the hunger pangs were no longer so exquisite, he realized that he was weak. He was compelled to pause for frequent rests, when he attacked the muskeg berries and rush-grass patches. His tongue felt dry and large, as though covered with a fine hairy growth, and it tasted bitter in his mouth. His heart gave him a great deal of trouble. When he had traveled 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 him and made him go faint and dizzy.

In the middle of the day he found two minnows in a large pool. It was impossible to bail it, but he was calmer now and managed to catch them in his tin bucket. They were no longer than his little finger, but he was not particularly hungry. The dull ache in his stomach had been growing duller and fainter. It seemed almost that his stomach was dozing. He ate the fish raw, masticating with painstaking care, for the eating was an act of pure reason. While he had no desire to eat, he knew that he must eat to live.

In the evening he caught three more minnows, eating two and saving the third for breakfast. The sun had dried stray shreds of moss, and he was able to warm himself with hot water. He had not covered more than ten miles that day; and the next day, traveling whenever his heart permitted him, he covered no more than five miles. But his stomach did not give him the slightest uneasiness. It had gone to sleep. He was in a strange country, too, and the caribou were growing more plentiful, also the wolves. Often their yelps drifted across the desolation, and once he saw three of them slinking away before his path.

Another night; and in the morning, being more rational, he untied the leather string that fastened the squat moose-hide sack. From its open mouth poured a yellow stream of coarse gold dust and nuggets. He roughly divided 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. He still clung to his gun, for there were cartridges in that cache by the river Dease.

This was a day of fog, and this day hunger awoke in him again. He was very 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 stumbling once, he fell squarely into a ptarmigan nest. There were four newly hatched chicks, a day old—little specks of pulsating life no more than a mouthful; and he ate them ravenously, thrusting them alive into his mouth and crunching them like eggshells between his teeth. The mohher ptarmigan beat about him with great outcry. He used his gun as a club with which to knock her over, but she dodged out of reach. He threw stones at her and with one chance shot broke a wing. Then she fluttered away, running, trailing the broken wing, with him in pursuit.

The little chicks had no more than whetted his appetite. He hopped and bobbed clumsily along on his injured ankle, throwing stones and screaming hoarsely at times; at other times hopping and bobbing silently along, picking himself up grimly and patiently when he fell, or rubbing his eyes with his hand when the giddiness threatened to overpower him.

The chase led him across swampy ground in the bottom of the valley, and he came upon footprints in the soggy moss. They were not his own—he could see that. They must be Bill’s. But he could not stop, for the mother ptarmigan was running on. He would catch her first, then he would return and investigate.

He exhausted the mother ptarmigan; but he exhausted himself. She lay panting on her side. He lay panting on his side, a dozen feet away, unable to crawl to her. And as he recovered she recovered, fluttering out of reach as his hungry hand went out to her. The chase was resumed. Night settled down and she escaped. He stumbled from weakness and pitched head foremost on his face, cutting his cheek, his pack upon his back. 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 into footwrappings. He failed to pick up Bill’s trail. It did not matter. His hunger was driving him too compellingly—only—only he wondered if Bill, too, were lost. By midday the irk of his pack became too oppressive. Again he divided the gold, this time merely spilling half of it on the ground. In the afternoon he threw the rest of it away, there remaining to him only the half-blanket, the tin bucket, and the rifle.

A hallucination began to trouble him. He felt confident that one cartridge remained to him. It was in the chamber of the rifle and he had overlooked it. On the other hand, he knew all the time that the chamber was empty. But the hallucination persisted. He fought it off for hours, then threw his ride open and was confronted with emptiness. The disappointment was as bitter as though he had really expected to find the cartridge.

He plodded on for half an hour, when the hallucination arose again. Again he fought it, and still it persisted, till for very relief he opened his rifle to unconvince himself. At times his mind wandered farther afield, and he plodded on, a mere automaton, strange conceits and whimsicalities gnawing at his brain like worms. But these excursions out of the real were of brief duration, for ever the pangs of the hunger bite called him back. He was jerked back abruptly once from such an excursion by a sight that caused him nearly to faint. He reeled and swayed, doddering like a drunken man to keep from falling. Before him stood a horse. A horse! He could not believe his eyes. A thick mist was in them, intershot with sparkling points of light. He rubbed his eyes savagely to clear his vision, and beheld not a horse but a great brown bear. The animal was studying him with bellicose curiosity.

The man had brought his gun halfway to his shoulder before he realized. He lowered it and drew his hunting knife from its beaded sheath at his hip. Before him was meat and life. He ran his thumb along the edge of his knife. It was sharp. The point was sharp. He would fling himself upon the bear and kill it. But his heart began its warning thump, thump, thump. Then followed the wild upward leap and tattoo of flutters, the pressing as of an iron hand about his forehead, the creeping of the dizziness into his brain.

His desperate courage was evicted by a great surge of fear. In his weakness, what if the animal attacked him? He drew himself up to his most imposing stature, gripping the knife and staring hard at the bear. The bear advanced clumsily a couple of steps, reared up, and gave vent to a tentative growl. If the man ran, he would run after him; but the man did not run. He was animated now with the courage of fear. He, too, growled, savagely, terribly, voicing the fear that is to life germane and that lies twisted about life’s deepest roots.

The bear edged away to one side, growling menacingly, himself appalled by this mysterious creature that appeared upright and unafraid. But the man did not move. He stood like a statue till the danger was past, when he yielded 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 was not the fear that he should die passively from lack of food, but that he should be destroyed violently before starvation had exhausted the last particle of the endeavor in him that made toward surviving. There were the wolves. Back and forth across the desolation drifted their howls, weaving the very air into a fabric of menace that was so tangible that he found himself, arms in the air, pressing it hack from him as it might be the 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, and besides, they were hunting the caribou, which did not battle, while this strange creature that walked erect might scratch and bite.

In the late afternoon he came upon scattered bones where the wolves had made 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 not yet died. Could it possibly be that he might be that ere the day was done! Such was life, eh? A vain and fleeting thing. It was only life that pained. There was no hurt in death. To die was to sleep. It meant cessation, rest. Then why was he not content to die?

But he did not moralize long. He was squatting in the moss, a bone in his 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 bone that broke, sometimes his teeth. Then he crushed the bones between rocks, pounded them to a pulp, and swallowed them. He pounded his fingers, too, in his haste, and yet found a moment in which to feel surprise at the fact that his fingers did not hurt much when caught under the descending rock.

Came frightful days of snow and rain. He did not know when he made camp, when he broke camp. He traveled in the night as much as in the day. He rested wherever he fell, crawled on whenever the dying life in him flickered up and burned less dimly. He, as a man, no longer strove. It was the life in him, unwilling to die, that drove him on. He did not suffer. His nerves had become blunted, numb, while his mind was filled with 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. He crossed no more hills or divides, but automatically followed a large stream which flowed through a wide and shallow valley. He did not see this stream nor this valley. He saw nothing save visions. Soul and body walked or crawled side by side, yet apart, so slender was the thread that bound them.

He awoke in his right mind, lying on his back on a rocky ledge. The sun was shining bright and warm. Afar off he heard the squawking of caribou calves. He was aware of vague memories of rain and wind and snow, but whether he had been beaten by the storm for two days or two weeks he did not know.

For some time he lay without movement, the genial sunshine pouring upon him and saturating his miserable body with its warmth. A fine day, he thought. Perhaps he could manage to locate himself. By a painful effort he 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 and lower-lying than any hills he had yet encountered. Slowly, deliberately, without excitement or more than the most casual interest, he followed the course of the strange stream toward the sky line and saw it emptying into a bright and shining sea. He was still unexcited. Most unusual, he thought, a vision or a mirage—more likely a vision, a trick of his disordered mind. He was confirmed in this by sight of a ship lying at anchor 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. He knew there were no seas or ships in the heart of the barren lands, just as he had known there was no cartridge in the empty rifle.

He heard a snuffle behind him—a half-choking gasp or cough. Very slowly, because of his exceeding weakness and stiffness, he rolled over on his other side. He could see nothing near at hand, but he waited patiently. Again came the snuffle and cough, and outlined between two jagged rocks not a score of feet away he made out the gray head of a wolf. The sharp ears were not pricked so sharply as he had seen them on other wolves; the eyes were bleared and bloodshot, the head seemed to droop limply and forlornly. The animal blinked continually in the sunshine. It seemed sick. As he looked it snuffled and coughed again.

This, at least, was real, he thought, and turned on the other side so that he might see the reality of the world which had been veiled from him before by the vision. But the sea still shone in the distance and the ship was plainly discernible. Was it reality after all? He closed his eyes for a long while and thought, and then it came to him. He had been making north by east, away from the Dease Divide and into the Coppermine Valley. This wide and sluggish river was the Coppermine. That shining sea was the Arctic Ocean. That ship was a whaler, strayed east, far east, from the mouth of the Mackenzie, and it was lying at anchor in Coronation Gulf. He remembered the Hudson’s Bay Company chart he had seen long ago, and it was all clear and reasonable to him.

He sat up and turned his attention to immediate affairs. He had worn through the blanket wrappings, and his feet were shapeless lumps of raw meat. His last blanket was gone. Rifle and knife were both missing. He had lost his hat somewhere, with the bunch of matches in the band, but the matches against his chest were safe and dry inside the tobacco pouch and oil paper. He looked at his watch. It marked eleven o’clock and was still running. Evidently he had kept it wound.

He was calm and collected. Though extremely weak, he had no sensation of pain. He was not hungry. The thought of food was not even pleasant to him, and whatever he did was done by his reason alone. He ripped off his pants legs to the knees and bound them about his feet. Somehow he had succeeded in retaining the tin bucket. He would have some hot water before 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 to collect dry moss he found be could not rise to his feet. He tried again and again, then contented himself with crawling about on hands and knees. Once he crawled near to the sick wolf. The animal dragged itself reluctantly out of his way, licking its chops with a tongue which seemed hardly to have the strength to curl. The man noticed that the tongue was not the customary healthy red. It was a yellowish brown and seemed coated with a rough and half-dry mucus.

After he had drunk a quart of hot water the man found he was able to stand, 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 and uncertain, just as the wolf’s that trailed him were feeble and uncertain; and that night, when the shining sea was blotted out by blackness, he knew he was nearer to it by no more than four miles.

Throughout the night he heard the cough of the sick wolf, and now and then 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 sick wolf clung to the sick man’s trail in the hope that the man would die first. In the morning, on opening his eyes, he beheld it regarding him with a wistful and hungry stare. It stood crouched, with tail between its legs, like a miserable and woebegone dog. It shivered in the chill morning wind and grinned dispiritedly when the man spoke to it in a voice that achieved no more than a hoarse whisper.

The sun rose brightly, and all morning the man tottered and fell toward the ship on the shining sea. The weather was perfect. It was the brief Indian summer of the high latitudes. It might last a week. Tomorrow or next day it might be gone.

In the afternoon the man came upon a trail. It was of another man, who did not walk, but who dragged himself on all fours. The man thought it might be Bill, but he thought in a dull, uninterested way. He had no curiosity. In fact sensation and emotion had left him. He was no longer susceptible to pain. Stomach and nerves had gone to sleep. Yet the life that was in him drove him on. He was very weary, but it refused to die. It was because it refused to die that he still ate muskeg berries and minnows, drank his hot water, and kept a wary eye on the sick wolf.

He followed the trail of the other man who dragged himself along, and soon came to the end of it—a few fresh-picked bones where the soggy moss was marked by the foot pads of many wolves. He saw a squat moose-hide sack, mate to his own, which had been torn by sharp teeth. He picked it up, though its weight was almost too much for his feeble fingers. Bill had carried it to the last. Ha-ha! He would have the laugh on Bill. He would survive and carry it to the ship in the shining sea. His mirth was hoarse and ghastly, like a raven’s croak, and the sick wolf joined him, howling lugubriously. The man ceased suddenly. How could he have the laugh on Bill if that were Bill; if those bones, so pinky-white and clean, were Bill?

He turned away. Well, Bill had deserted him; but he would not take the gold, nor would he suck Bill’s bones. Bill would have, though, had it been the other way around, he mused as he staggered on.

He came to a pool of water. Stooping over in quest of minnows, he jerked his head back as though he had been stung. He had caught sight of his rellected face. So horrible was it that sensibility awoke long enough to be shocked. There were three minnows in the pool, which was too large to drain; and after several ineffectual attempts to catch them in the tin bucket he forbore. He was afraid, because of his great weakness, that he might fall in and drown. It was for this reason that he did not trust himself to the river astride one of the many drift logs which lined its sandspits.

That day he decreased the distance between him and the ship by three miles; 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 and him 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 the sick wolf coughed and wheezed at his heels. His knees had become raw meat like his feet, and though he padded them with the shirt from his back 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, and he saw sharply what his own end might be—unless—unless he could get the wolf. Then began as grim a tragedy of existence as was ever played—a sick man that crawled, a sick wolf that limped, two creatures dragging their dying carcasses across the desolation and hunting each other’s lives.

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 but dead thing was repugnant to him. He was finicky. His mind had begun to wander again and to be perplexed by hallucinations, while his lucid intervals grew rarer and shorter.

He was awakened once from a faint by a wheeze close in his ear. The wolf leaped lamely back, losing its footing and falling in its weakness. It was ludicrous, but he was not amused. Nor was he even afraid. He was too far gone for that. But his mind was for the moment clear, and he lay and considered. The ship was no more than four miles away. He could see it quite distinctly when he rubbed the mists out of his eyes, and he could see the white sail of a small boat cutting the water of the shining sea. But he could never crawl those four miles. He knew that, and was very 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 after all he had undergone. Fate asked too much of him. And, dying, he declined to die. It was stark madness, perhaps, but in the very grip of death he defied death and refused to die.

He closed his eyes and composed himself with infinite precaution. He steeled himself to keep above the suffocating languor that lapped like a rising 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 bit by bit. Sometimes he was all but submerged, swimming through oblivion with a faltering stroke; and again, by some strange alchemy of soul, he would find another shred of will and strike out more strongly.

Without movement he lay on his back, and he could hear, slowly drawing nearer and nearer, the wheezing intake and output of the sick wolf’s breath. It drew closer, ever closer, through an infinitude of time, and he did not move. It was at his ear. The harsh dry tongue grated like sandpaper against his cheek. His hands shot out—or at least he willed them to shoot out. The fingers were curved like talons, but they closed on empty air. Swiftness and certitude require strength, and the man had not this strength.

The patience of the wolf was terrible. The man’s patience was no less terrible. For half a day he lay motionless, fighting off unconsciousness and waiting for the thing that was to feed upon him and upon which he wished to feed. Sometimes the languid sea rose over him and he dreamed long dreams; but ever through it all, waking and dreaming, he waited for the wheezing breath and the harsh caress of the tongue.

He did not hear the breath, and he slipped slowly from some dream to the feel of the tongue along his hand. He waited. The fangs pressed softly; the pressure increased; the wolf was exerting its last strength in an effort to sink teeth in the food for which it had waited so long. But the man had waited long, and the lacerated hand closed on the jaw. Slowly, while the wolf struggled feebly and the hand clutched feebly, the other hand crept across to a grip. Five minutes later the whole weight of the man’s body was on top of the wolf. The hands had not sufficient strength to choke the wolf, but the face of the man was pressed close to the throat of the wolf and the mouth of the man was full of hair. At the end of half an hour the man was aware of a warm trickle in his throat. It was 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 his back and slept.

There were some members of a scientific expedition on the whaleship Bedford. From the deck they remarked a strange object on the shore. It was moving down the beach toward the water. They were unable to classify it, and, being scientific men, they climbed into the whaleboat alongside and went ashore to see. And they saw something that was alive but which could hardly be called a man. It was blind, unconscious. It squirmed along the ground like some monstrous worm. Most of its efforts were ineffectual, but it was persistent, and it writhed and twisted and went ahead perhaps a score of feet an hour.

Three weeks afterward the man lay in a bunk on the whaleship Bedford, and with tears streaming down his wasted cheeks told who he was and what he had undergone. He also babbled incoherently of his mother, of sunny southern California, and a home among the orange groves and flowers.

The days were not many after that when he sat at table with the scientific men and ship’s officers. He gloated over the spectacle of so much food, watching it anxiously as it went into the mouths of others. With the disappearance of each mouthful an expression of deep regret came into his eyes. He was quite sane, yet he hated those men at mealtime. He was haunted by a fear that the food would not last. He inquired of the cook, the cabin boy, the captain, concerning the food stores. They reassured him countless times; but he could not believe them, and pried cunningly about the lazaret to see with his own eyes.

It was noticed that the man was getting fat. He grew stouter with each day. The scientific men shook their heads and theorized. They limited the man at his meals, but still his girth increased and he swelled prodigiously under his shirt.

The sailors grinned. They knew. And when the scientific men set a watch on the man they knew. They saw him slouch for’ard after breakfast, and, like a mendicant, with outstretched palm, accost a sailor. The sailor grinned and passed him a fragment of sea biscuit. He clutched it avariciously, looked at it as a miser looks at gold, and thrust it into his shirt bosom. Similar were the donations from other grinning sailors.

The scientific men were discreet. They let him alone. But they privily examined his bunk. It was lined with hardtack; the mattress was stuffed with hardtack; every nook and cranny was filled with hardtack. Yet he was sane. He was taking precautions against another possible famine—that was all. He would recover from it, the scientific men said; and he did, ere the Bedford’s anchor rumbled down in San Francisco Bay.




Любов до життя


Нiщо не пiде в забуття,
не марно ми на вiдчай грали;
ми за цiною не стояли
у грi, де ставкою – життя.


Вони сходили з берега кульгаючи; той iз двох чоловiкiв, що йшов першим, раз послизнувся на кам’янистому розсипi. Обое знемагали вiд утоми, i на iхнiх обличчях застиг байдужий, покiрливий вираз, що з’являеться пiсля тривалих випробувань. За плечима в них висiли важкi мiшки на ременях. Переднi лямки мiшкiв були закрiпленi на головi – це трохи полегшувало тягар. Кожен нiс рушницю. Вони йшли згорбившись, iз опущеними плечима i похиленою головою, втупивши погляд у землю.

– Якби в нас було хоч два набоi з тих, що лежать у схованцi, – сказав другий чоловiк.

Його голос звучав мляво, спроквола. Вiн говорив зовсiм невиразно; i його товариш, ступивши у молочно-бiлу воду, що пiнилася навколо скель, нiчого не вiдповiв.

Другий iшов за ним слiдом. Вони не зняли черевикiв, хоч вода була холодна як лiд, – така холодна, що заболiли кiсточки на ногах, а пальцi занiмiли. Подекуди вода сягала iм до колiн, i обое хиталися, намагаючись зберегти рiвновагу.

Той, що йшов позаду, послизнувся на гладкому каменi i ледь не впав, та вiдчайдушним зусиллям утримався на ногах. Тiеi ж митi вiн голосно скрикнув од болю. Здавалося, вiн от-от знепритомнiе: вiн ривком простяг перед собою вiльну руку, нiби шукаючи опори в повiтрi. Опанувавши себе, вiн ступив уперед, та заточився i ледве не впав знову. Тодi вiн став i поглянув на свого товариша, що навiть не озирнувся у його бiк.

Якусь мить чоловiк стояв нерухомо, нiби вагаючись, потiм крикнув:

– Чуеш, Бiлле, я пiдвернув ногу!

Бiлл шкутильгав далi по молочно-бiлiй водi. Вiн не озирнувся. Чоловiк дививсь йому вслiд, i, хоч його обличчя лишалося байдужим, очi в нього були як у пораненого оленя.

Його супутник насилу вибрався на берег i рушив далi, жодного разу не озирнувшись. Чоловiк посеред рiчки стежив за ним. Його губи ледь тремтiли, i жорсткi темнi вуса над ними ворушилися. Вiн облизнув пересохлi губи.

– Бiлле! – закричав вiн.

Це був вiдчайдушний крик людини, що потрапила в бiду. Проте Бiлл не повернув голови. Чоловiк дивився, як вiн iде, зiгнувшись i незграбно кульгаючи, як вiн непевно пiднiмаеться пологим схилом до ледь видимого небокраю, на вершину низького пагорба. Вiн дивився йому вслiд доти, поки Бiлл не перетнув вершину i не зник з очей. Тодi чоловiк вiдвiв погляд i повiльно озирнув той свiт, в якому тепер лишався сам-один.

Над обрiем тьмяно свiтилося сонце, майже невидиме у маревi туману, що здавався густою безформною масою без кiнця та краю. Чоловiк сперся всiею вагою тiла на одну ногу i дiстав годинника. Була четверта година, i, оскiльки настав кiнець липня чи то початок серпня – вiн уже тижнiв зо два як втратив лiк дням, – сонце мусило стояти на пiвнiчному заходi. Вiн поглянув на пiвдень, знаючи, що десь у тому напрямi, за цими похмурими пагорбами, лежить Велике Ведмеже озеро; також вiн знав, що там, на Канадськiй пустцi, вершить свiй вiдлюдний шлях Полярне коло. Рiчка, в якiй вiн стояв, була притокою рiки Коппермайн, яка тече на пiвнiч i впадае у затоку Коронацii, у Пiвнiчний Льодовитий океан. Вiн нiколи там не бував, проте якось бачив цю мiсцевiсть на картi Компанii Гудзонськоi затоки.

Вiн знову озирнув свiт довкола себе. Видовище було невтiшне. Усюди, куди не глянь, нерiвна лiнiя обрiю, замкнена низькими пагорбами; нi деревця, нi кущика, нi трави – нiчого, крiм жахливоi, моторошноi пустки, що сповнила його очi страхом.

– Бiлле! – прошепотiв вiн i повторив знову: – Бiлле!

Вiн схилився до бiлоi води – так, наче ця пустка давила його своею нездоланною силою, гнiтила безмовним жахом. Вiн судомно здригнувся, наче у лихоманцi, i його рушниця з плюскотом упала у воду. Це змусило його схаменутись. Вiн переборов страх, зiбрався на силi i, потягшись уперед, занурив руку у воду i витяг рушницю. Потiм вiн посунув мiшок ближче до лiвого плеча, щоб тягар не натруджував поранену ногу. А затим повiльно, обережно рушив до берега, кривлячись од болю.

Вiн не зупинявся. З вiдчайдушною, нестямною рiшучiстю, не зважаючи на бiль, кульгаючи i спотикаючись, вiн спiшив зiйти на вершину пагорба, за яким зник його товариш, i при цьому виглядав ще бiльш смiшним i незграбним, нiж той. Але, пiднявшись нагору, вiн побачив лише порожню, безживну долину. Вiн знову пересилив свiй страх i, посунувши мiшок ще ближче до лiвого плеча, поплентався вниз.

Дно долини розкисло вiд води, що ii, наче губка, вбирав у себе густий мох. На кожному кроцi вода хлюпала з-пiд нiг, i щоразу, як вiн вiдривав ступню вiд землi, чулося жвакання – болотяна твань неохоче послаблювала свою чiпку хватку. Вiн торував собi шлях од озерця до озерця, ступаючи у слiди Бiлла, – по каменях, що стирчали серед моху, наче острiвцi.

Лишившись на самотi, вiн не заблукав. Вiн знав, що скоро вийде на те мiсце, де сухi ялицi та ялини, низькi й чахлi, оточують маленьке озеро тiтчiн-нiчiлi – мiсцевою мовою це значить «краiна малих паличок». А в це озеро впадае струмок, i вода в ньому не бiла. Там, над струмком, росте очерет – це вiн пам’ятае добре, – але дерев там немае. Вiн пiде за течiею до гирла, до вододiлу, перейде через вододiл до гирла iншого струмка, що тече на захiд, i спуститься до того мiсця, де струмок впадае у рiчку Дiз. А там вiн знайде схованку пiд перевернутим каное, що завалене камiнням. У схованцi лежать набоi для рушницi, риболовнi гачки та волосiнь, невелика сiтка – усе, щоб добути собi поживу. І ще там е борошно – щоправда, небагато, – шматок бекону i трохи бобiв.

Бiлл дочекаеться його там, i вони рушать на пiвдень по рiчцi Дiз, до Великого Ведмежого озера, перепливуть через озеро i пiдуть далi на пiвдень, весь час на пiвдень, аж поки дiйдуть до Маккензi. На пiвдень, весь час на пiвдень, бо зима йтиме за ними слiдом, i стрiмку течiю рiчки скуе крига, i днi стануть холодними, – на пiвдень, до якого-небудь вiддiлення Компанii Гудзонськоi затоки, де тепло, i ростуть високi пишнi дерева, i iжi вдосталь.

Так думав чоловiк, насилу плентаючи вперед. Та хоч як тяжко йому було переборювати тiлесну слабкiсть, ще тяжче було боротися з сумнiвами – думати, що Бiлл його не покинув, що Бiлл будь-що дочекаеться його бiля схованки. Вiн мусить так думати, а iнакше немае сенсу боротися далi – можна тiльки лягти на землю i померти. І коли тьмяна куля сонця повiльно сховалася на пiвнiчному заходi, вiн уже встиг полiчити – i не один раз – кожен дюйм того шляху на пiвдень, що вони з Бiллом мусять пройти, перш нiж iх наздожене зима. Вiн подумки пiдраховував запаси iжi у схованцi й запаси iжi у вiддiленнi Компанii Гудзонськоi затоки, пiдраховував знову й знову. Вiн не iв уже два днi; та набагато довше не iв досхочу. Подеколи вiн схилявся, зривав блiдi болотянi ягоди, клав iх до рота, жував i ковтав. Болотяна ягода – це дрiбна насiнина у водянистiй оболонцi. В ротi оболонка розтае, лишаеться тiльки тверда i гiрка насiнина. Вiн знав, що цими ягодами не можна наiстись, але терпляче жував iх iз тiею надiею, що переважае знання i не зважае на досвiд.

О дев’ятiй годинi вiн забив ногу об камiнь, спiткнувся i, знеможений, утомлений, упав на землю. Деякий час вiн лежав на боцi не ворушачись. Потiм скинув наплiчнi ременi й сяк-так спромiгся сiсти. Ще не стемнiло, i в тьмяному присмерку вiн почав шукати мiж камiнням сухий мох. Назбиравши цiлий оберемок, вiн розпалив вогнище – чадне, димне вогнище – i повiсив над ним жерстяний казанок iз водою.

Вiн розв’язав мiшок i насамперед полiчив своi сiрники. Їх було шiстдесят сiм. Для певностi вiн полiчив тричi. Потiм роздiлив сiрники на три купки i загорнув кожну в проолiений папiр; один пакуночок поклав у порожнiй кисет, другий – за пiдкладку пошарпаного капелюха, третiй – за пазуху. Коли вiн iз цим упорався, йому раптом стало страшно, i вiн знову розгорнув сiрники та перелiчив iще раз. Їх таки було шiстдесят сiм.

Вiн висушив мокрi черевики бiля вогнища. Вiд мокасинiв лишилося шкураття. Шкарпетки, зшитi з ковдри, порвались, i ноги в нього були збитi до кровi. Поранена нога болiла, i вiн оглянув ii. Вона розпухла i вся стала така ж товста, як колiно. Вiн одiрвав довгу смужку вiд однiеi з двох ковдр i туго перев’язав ногу, вiдiрвав iще кiлька смужок i обмотав ними ноги замiсть мокасинiв та шкарпеток. Потiм випив гарячоi води, завiв годинника i заповз пiд ковдру.



Вiн спав як убитий. Опiвночi стемнiло, а потiм знову розвиднилося. На пiвнiчному сходi зiйшло сонце – чи просто там стало трохи свiтлiше, бо сонце ховалося за сiрими хмарами.

О шостiй вiн прокинувся, лежачи на спинi. Позирнув угору, на сiре небо, i вiдчув голод. Спершись на лiкоть, вiн повернувся, раптом почув голосне форкання i побачив великого оленя-карибу, що дивився на нього зi сторожкою цiкавiстю. Олень був не далi нiж футiв за п’ятдесят од нього, i чоловiк ураз уявив собi вигляд i запах оленячого м’яса, що шкварчить на сковорiдцi. Вiн мимоволi схопив незаряджену рушницю, прицiлився й натиснув на спуск. Олень форкнув i кинувся геть, дзвiнко стукаючи копитами по камiнню.

Чоловiк вилаявся i пожбурив рушницю. Вiн стогнав, намагаючись пiдвестися, – це було дуже тяжко i забрало багато часу. Суглоби в нього наче заiржавiли i рухалися з неймовiрним зусиллям, кожен порух потребував надзвичайного напруження волi. Коли вiн урештi звiвся на ноги, йому знадобилося ще кiлька хвилин, аби випростатись i стати прямо, як личить людинi.

Вiн вилiз на невеликий пагорбок i роззирнувся довкола. Нi дерев, нi кущiв, нiчого, крiм сiрого моря моху, де маячили сiрi скелi, сiрi озерця i сiрi струмки. Небо також було сiре. Нi сонця, нi сонячного свiтла! Вiн не уявляв, де знаходиться пiвнiч, i забув, звiдки прийшов учора ввечерi. Та вiн не заблукав. Вiн знав це. Скоро вiн прийде у краiну маленьких паличок. Звичайно, вона десь лiворуч, недалеко звiдси – певно, за найближчим пагорбом.

Вiн повернувся назад, аби спакувати свою торбину для подорожi. Перевiрив, чи на мiсцi три пакунки з сiрниками, але рахувати сiрники не став. Проте вiн ще трохи зволiкав у роздумах, дивлячись на товстий мiшечок з оленячоi шкiри. Мiшечок був невеликий, вмiщався мiж долонями, але важив п’ятнадцять фунтiв – стiльки ж, скiльки всi iншi речi, – i це його непокоiло. Зрештою вiн вiдклав мiшечок убiк i продовжував пакувати торбину. Та за мить вiн глипнув на мiшечок, квапливо схопив його i з викликом озирнувся довкола – так, наче пустеля намагалася його пограбувати. І коли вiн звiвся на ноги, щоб iти, мiшечок лежав у торбинi в нього за спиною.

Вiн звернув лiворуч i час вiд часу зупинявся, зриваючи болотянi ягоди. Нога в нього задерев’янiла, вiн почав ще бiльше кульгати, але бiль у нозi не можна було навiть порiвняти з болем у шлунку. Муки голоду були нестерпнi. Бiль допiкав йому все дужче, i врештi-решт вiн уже не мiг думати про те, в який бiк слiд iти, щоб потрапити у краiну малих паличок. Болотянi ягоди не вгамовували цей бiль, тiльки пекли гiркотою язик i пiднебiння.

Вiн дiйшов до невеликоi долини, i зграя сполоханих курiпок iз шумом зринула в повiтря з каменiв та пагорбкiв. «Кр-р, кр-р, кр-р!» – кричали птахи. Вiн кинув у них каменем, та не влучив. Тодi, поклавши мiшок на землю, почав пiдкрадатися до них, як кiшка пiдкрадаеться до горобцiв. Штани в нього порвались об гостре камiння, i вiд колiн тягнувся кривавий слiд; та цей бiль затьмарили муки голоду. Вiн повз по мокрому моховi, його одяг намок, тiло змерзло; та вiн цього не помiчав, думаючи тiльки про iжу. А курiпки злiтали просто перед ним, поки це «кр-р, кр-р, кр-р» не зазвучало для нього, мов насмiшка. Тодi вiн вилаяв птахiв i почав уголос передражнювати iхнiй крик.

Була мить, коли вiн надибав курiпку, що, мабуть, спала. Вiн ii не бачив, поки та не пурхнула просто йому в лице зi своеi схованки мiж каменiв. Схопив ii так само швидко, як вона злетiла, та в руцi у нього лишилося тiльки три бiлi пiр’iни з хвоста. Вiн дивився на курiпку, що полетiла геть, iз такою ненавистю, нiби вона зробила йому страшне зло. Потiм повернувся назад i завдав собi на плечi мiшок.

Опiвднi вiн дiстався до болотистоi долини, де здобичi було бiльше. Осторонь пройшло стадо оленiв, двадцять чудових тварин, що на вiдстанi рушничного пострiлу були недосяжнi для нього. Вiн вiдчув дике бажання бiгти за ними, певний, що дожене стадо. Потiм назустрiч йому трапилася чорна лисиця з курiпкою в зубах. Чоловiк закричав. Це був страшний крик, проте лисиця, злякано сахнувшись убiк, не впустила здобичi.

Надвечiр вiн iшов за течiею молочно-бiлого вiд вапна струмка, що протiкав серед рiдкого очерету. Схопивши очеретину бiля самого кореня, вiн вирвав щось схоже на молоду цибулину, не бiльшу вiд цвяха. Вона була м’яка i так захрустiла на зубах, що, певно, мусила смакувати добре. Але волокна виявилися жорсткими, просякнутими водою, як болотянi ягоди, i з них не було нiякоi поживи. Вiн скинув свiй мiшок i рачки поповз у заростi очерету, хрумкаючи, мов жуйна тварина.

Вiн дуже стомився, i йому часто хотiлося перепочити – лягти на землю та заснути; але щось тягнуло його вперед – не так бажання дiйти до краiни малих паличок, як голод. Вiн шукав жаб в озерах, копав нiгтями землю, сподiваючись знайти хробакiв – хоч i знав, що нi жаби, нi хробаки не живуть тут, на далекiй Пiвночi.

Вiн марно заглядав у кожну калюжу i зрештою, коли вже звечорiло, побачив у однiй такiй калюжi самотню рибинку завбiльшки з пiчкура. Вiн занурив у воду праву руку аж по плече, та риба вислизнула. Вiн почав ловити ii обома руками i розбурхав мул на днi. Розхвилювавшись, упав у воду i вимок до пояса. Тепер вiн так скаламутив воду, що риби й зовсiм не було видно, i довелося чекати, поки мул осяде на дно.

Потiм знову заходився ловити – поки вода знову не скаламутилася. Та чекати вiн не мiг. Вiдв’язав жерстяне цеберко i почав вибирати воду. Спершу вiн черпав iз шаленим завзяттям, облився i виливав воду так близько вiд себе, що вона знову стiкала в калюжу. Потiм почав черпати обережно, намагаючись бути спокiйним, хоч серце в нього калатало i руки тремтiли. За пiвгодини калюжа була вичерпана майже до дна, води лишилося зi склянку, не бiльше. А риби не було. Вiн побачив непомiтну розколину мiж камiнням, крiзь яку риба прослизнула до сусiдньоi, бiльшоi калюжi – такоi великоi, що ii не можна було б вичерпати i за добу. Якби знав про цю розколину, вiн би одразу затулив ii каменем i спiймав рибу.

Подумавши про це, у розпачi кинувся на мокру землю. Спочатку вiн плакав тихо, потiм заридав уголос, озиваючись до безжальноi пустки довкола; i ще довго здригався у плачi без слiз.

Вiн розпалив вогнище i зiгрiвся, випивши багато окропу, а потiм умостився на кам’янистому виступi, як минулоi ночi. Перед сном перевiрив, чи не намокли сiрники, i завiв годинника. Ковдри були вогкi й холоднi. Ногу судомив бiль. Та вiн вiдчував лише голод – i в тривожному снi марив про бенкети та святковi столи, повнi iжi.

Вiн прокинувся, змерзлий i кволий. Сонця не було. Сiрi барви землi й неба зробилися темнiшими та глибшими. Налiтав рiзкий вiтер, i перший снiг побiлив пагорби. Повiтря нiби загусло i побiлiло, поки вiн розпалював вогонь i кип’ятив воду. Це пiшов мокрий снiг, радше схожий на дощ, снiжинки були великi та просоченi водою. Спершу вони танули, ледве торкнувшись землi, але снiг усе йшов, укриваючи землю, i зрештою намочив мох у вогнищi, i вогонь погас.

Це було для нього знаком, що треба знову спакувати мiшок i плентатися вперед, невiдомо куди. Вiн уже не думав анi про краiну малих паличок, а нi про Бiлла, нi про схованку пiд перевернутим каное бiля рiчки Дiз. Ним володiло одне бажання – iсти. Вiн божеволiв од голоду. Не зважав, куди йде – аби тiльки по рiвнiй мiсцинi. Вiн навпомацки шукав пiд мокрим снiгом водянистi болотянi ягоди, навмання висмикував iз корiнням стеблини очерету. Та все це не мало смаку i не давало поживи. Вiн знайшов якусь траву, кислу на смак, i з’iв ii всю, скiльки знайшов, та цього було дуже мало, бо трава стелилася по землi, i ii було важко знайти пiд снiгом завтовшки у кiлька дюймiв.

Цiеi ночi в нього не було нi вогню, нi гарячоi води, i вiн заповз пiд ковдру й заснув тривожним од голоду сном. Снiг обернувся на мокрий дощ. Вiн багато разiв прокидався, вiдчуваючи, що дощ мочить йому лице. Настав день – сiрий день без сонця. Дощ перестав. Гостре вiдчуття голоду вщухло. Тепер вiн уже не жадав iжi. Лишився тiльки тупий бiль i важкiсть у шлунку, та це його не надто бентежило. Вiн трохи оговтався i знову мiг думати про краiну малих паличок та схованку бiля рiчки Дiз.

Вiн розiрвав рештки однiеi ковдри на клаптi й обмотав скривавленi ноги. Потiм перев’язав поранену ногу i приготувався до денного переходу. Взявшись за торбину, довго роздумував над мiшечком з оленячоi шкiри, та зрештою забрав i його.

Снiг розтанув пiд дощем, i тiльки вершини пагорбiв лишалися бiлими. Визирнуло сонце, i йому вдалося визначити сторони свiту, хоча тепер вiн знав, що збився з дороги. Мабуть, блукаючи останнiми днями, вiн зайшов надто далеко влiво. Тепер вiн звернув праворуч, аби повернутися на вiрний шлях.

Муки голоду вже не так дошкуляли, та вiн вiдчував, що слабшае. Йому доводилося часто зупинятись i вiдпочивати, збираючи болотянi ягоди та цибулини очерету. Язик набряк i став шерхлим, наче вкритий щетиною, i в ротi було гiрко. І ще його дуже непокоiло серце. Варто йому було пройти кiлька хвилин, i воно починало безжально калатати, а потiм наче пiдстрибувало вгору i трiпотiло у болiснiй судомi, i вiн вiдчував задуху та млiсть.

Опiвднi вiн побачив двох пiчкурiв у великiй калюжi. Вичерпати воду було неможливо, але тепер вiн був спокiйнiшим i примудрився зловити iх жерстяним цеберком. Риби були завбiльшки з мiзинець, але йому не дуже хотiлось iсти. Тупий бiль у шлунку все слабшав, ставав приглушеним, наче шлунок дрiмав. Вiн з’iв рибок сирими i розжовував iх дуже старанно, але то було тiльки розумове зусилля. Йому не хотiлось iсти, але вiн знав, що це потрiбно для того, щоб вижити.

Увечерi вiн зловив iще трьох пiчкурiв, двох з’iв, а третього лишив на снiданок. Сонце висушило кущики моху, що траплялися подекуди, i тепер вiн мiг зiгрiтися, випивши гарячоi води. Того дня вiн пройшов не бiльше десяти миль; а наступного, iдучи тiльки тодi, коли дозволяло серце, – не бiльше п’яти. Але тепер шлунок анiтрохи не дошкуляв йому – наче заснув. Мiсцина була йому незнайома, тут частiше траплялися карибу та й вовки також. Їхне виття часто долинало з глибини пустелi, а якось трое вовкiв промайнули перед ним, перебiгаючи стежку.

Минула ще одна нiч; i вранцi, по тверезому роздумi, вiн розв’язав ремiнець, що застiбав шкiряний мiшечок. Із нього жовтим струменем полився крупнозернистий золотий пiсок i самородки. Вiн роздiлив золото приблизно навпiл, одну половину заховав на примiтному виступi скелi, загорнувши у шматок ковдри, а другу – знову висипав у мiшечок. Ковдру, що лишилася, вiн також розiрвав на пов’язки для нiг. Та рушницю досi не кинув, бо у схованцi бiля рiчки Дiз лежали набоi.

День був туманний, i цього дня в ньому знову прокинувся голод. Вiн почувався дуже слабким, i часом непереборна млiсть застилала йому очi. Тепер вiн раз у раз спотикався й падав; i якось, спiткнувшись, вiн упав просто на гнiздо курiпки. Там було четверо пташенят, якi щойно вилупилися, – малi грудочки трiпотливого життя, яких вистачило б на один ковток; i вiн з’iв iх жадiбно, запихаючи до рота живими, i вони хрустiли в нього на зубах, мов яечна шкаралупа. Мати-курiпка кидалася на нього з жалiсним квилiнням. Вiн хотiв прибити ii рушницею, та не змiг дотягнутися. Тодi почав кидати у неi камiнням i перебив iй крило. Вона кинулася геть, тягнучи крило за собою, а вiн рушив слiдом.

Пташенята лише роздражнили його голод. Вiн важко пiдстрибував, накульгуючи на поранену ногу, i кидав у курiпку камiнням, i подеколи хрипко кричав; а часом продовжував свою незграбну гонитву мовчки, похмуро й терпляче змушуючи себе пiдводитися пiсля кожного падiння, i коли йому млоiлося в очах, протирав iх рукою, щоб не знепритомнiти.

Гонитва за курiпкою привела його на дно вогкоi долини, i там вiн помiтив людськi слiди на мокрому моху. Слiди були не його – вiн побачив це одразу. Мабуть, то слiди Бiлла. Та зупинитися вiн не мiг, бо курiпка втiкала. Спершу вiн пiймае ii, а тодi повернеться i роздивиться слiди.

Пташина вибилася з сил; але вiн знесилiв також. Вона лежала на боцi, важко дихаючи, i вiн, також задиханий, лежав на боцi за десять футiв од неi, не в змозi пiдповзти ближче. А коли вiн вiдпочив, вона теж зiбралася на силi i сахнулася геть вiд його жадiбно простягнутоi руки. Гонитва почалася знову. Та невдовзi стемнiло, i курiпка зникла. Вiн похитнувся вiд утоми i, впавши з мiшком на спинi, вдарився головою й поранив собi щоку. Довго лежав не ворушачись; потiм повернувся на бiк, завiв годинника i пробув так до ранку.

Ще один туманний день. Половина останньоi ковдри пiшла на онучi. Слiди Бiлла йому не вдалося знайти, та це не мало значення, – голод настирливо гнав його вперед. От тiльки… що як Бiлл заблукав? Опiвднi тягар мiшка став для нього заважким. Вiн знову роздiлив золото, цього разу просто висипавши половину на землю. Надвечiр викинув i рештки, i тепер у нього лишилися тiльки клапоть ковдри, жерстяне цеберко та рушниця.

Його почали мучити марення. Вiн чомусь був певен, що в нього лишаеться один набiй. Рушниця заряджена, просто вiн цього не помiтив, – i водночас вiн знав, що магазин рушницi порожнiй. Марення не вiдступало. Вiн довгi години боровся з цiею настирливою думкою, потiм оглянув магазин i впевнився, що набою там немае. Розчарування було таким гiрким, наче вiн i справдi сподiвався знайти набiй.

Вiн iшов iще з пiвгодини, а потiм марення повернулося. Вiн знову спробував боротись, i боротьба знову була марною, i, щоб позбутися цiеi муки, вiн знов оглянув рушницю. Часом нiби втрачав розум i йшов далi несвiдомо, як автомат; дивнi думки i хибнi уявлення вгризалися в його мозок, мов черва. Та цi провали у свiдомостi тривали недовго, бо муки голоду повертали його у дiйснiсть. Одного разу вiн прийшов до тями, побачивши видиво, що ледь не змусило його знепритомнiти. Вiн заточився i, хитаючись, мов п’яний, ледве не впав. Перед ним стояв кiнь. Кiнь! Вiн не вiрив своiм очам. Їх застилав густий туман iз мерехтливими вогниками свiтла. Вiн почав люто терти очi, а коли зiр прояснився, побачив, що перед ним не кiнь, а великий бурий ведмiдь. Звiр розглядав його з войовничою цiкавiстю.

Чоловiк почав знiмати з плеча рушницю, та потiм отямився. Вiн опустив рушницю i витяг мисливський нiж iз вишитих бiсером пiхов на стегнi. Перед ним було м’ясо й життя. Вiн провiв великим пальцем по лезу ножа. Лезо було гостре i вiстря також. Вiн кинеться на ведмедя i вб’е його. Та серце в чоловiка почало загрозливо калатати, а потiм шалено рвонулося вгору i затрiпотiло; лоб стисло залiзним обручем, i йому стало млосно.

Вiдчайдушну хоробрiсть змила могутня хвиля страху. Вiн такий слабкий, – що буде, коли звiр нападе на нього? Чоловiк випростався на весь зрiст i з якомога рiшучiшим виглядом мiцно схопив нiж i втупив погляд у ведмедя. Звiр незграбно ступив уперед, став дибки i грiзно заревiв. Якби чоловiк почав тiкати, ведмiдь погнався б за ним; але чоловiк не тiкав. Страх надав йому смiливостi. Вiн також заричав – люто, вiдчайдушно, як дикий звiр, i це був голос страху, що спорiднений iз життям i сплiтаеться з його найглибшим корiнням.

Ведмiдь одступив убiк iз грiзним ревiнням, наляканий цiею дивною iстотою, що стояла прямо i не боялася його. Та чоловiк не рухався. Вiн стояв зацiпенiвши, поки минула небезпека, а потiм затремтiв i без сил кинувся на мокрий мох.

Потiм вiн опанував себе i рушив далi, охоплений новим страхом. Це не був страх голодноi смертi, – тепер його жахала думка, що вiн загине раптово, перш нiж голод заглушить у ньому останнiй порив жаги до життя. Навколо були вовки. То тут, то там iз далини пустелi долинало iхне виття, так вiдчутно сповнюючи повiтря загрозою, що вiн пiдводив руки у мимовiльнiй спробi вiдкинути цю загрозу геть од себе, наче то була хитка стiна намету, напнута вiтром.

А вовки знову й знову, по двое i по трое, перебiгали йому стежку. Та вони трималися на вiдстанi. Їх було не надто багато, i до того ж вони звикли полювати карибу, якi не опираються; а це чудне створiння, що ходить на двох ногах, мабуть, умiло дряпатись i кусатись.

Пiзно ввечерi вiн побачив кiстки, розкиданi там, де вовки розiрвали здобич. Цей кiстяк iще годину тому був оленятком, що прудко бiгало i мукало, сповнене життя. Вiн дивився на кiстки, дощенту обгризенi, гладенькi й рожевi, бо життя ще жеврiло в iхнiх клiтинах. Може, ще до кiнця дня й вiд нього лишиться те саме! Адже таке воно, життя, хiба нi? Марнотна, непевна рiч. Тiльки життя завдае болю. Смерть не болiсна. Вмерти – значить заснути. Це забуття, спочинок. Чому ж вiн не згоден померти?

Та мiркував вiн недовго. Ще мить – i вiн зiщулившись сидiв на моху, тримав у ротi кiстку i висотував iз неi рештки життя, якi ще надавали iй рожевого кольору. Солодкий м’ясний присмак, ледь чутний, майже невловимий, як спогад, розлютив його. Вiн уп’явся в кiстку i почав гризти. Часом ламалася кiстка, часом його зуби. Потiм вiн став розбивати кiстки каменем i, розтовкши на мiсиво, ковтав. Поспiшаючи, вiн часом влучав собi по пальцях – i все ж таки знаходив час дивуватися, чому не вiдчувае болю вiд ударiв.

Потяглися страшнi днi дощу й снiгу. Вiн уже не усвiдомлював, коли зупиняеться на нiчлiг i коли рушае в путь знову. Вiн iшов i вдень, i вночi. Вiдпочивав там, де впаде, i плентався далi, коли згасле життя в ньому спалахувало i розгоралося трохи яскравiше. Вiн уже не боровся, як людина. Це життя в ньому, не бажаючи вмирати, вело його вперед. Вiн бiльше не страждав. Його нерви наче занiмiли, застигли, а свiдомiсть була у полонi диких видiнь i солодких снiв.

Але весь час вiн смоктав i жував роздробленi кiстки оленяти, рештки яких пiдiбрав i взяв iз собою. Вiн бiльше не перетинав пагорби й вододiли, а просто несвiдомо йшов за течiею великого потоку, що бiг по широкiй пологiй долинi. Вiн не бачив нi рiки, нi долини, – нiчого, крiм своiх видiнь. Його душа i тiло йшли – чи то блукали – поряд, проте окремо, бо надто тонкий був зв’язок мiж ними.

Вiн отямився, лежачи на кам’янистому виступi. Яскраво свiтило тепле сонце. Здалеку долинало мукання оленят. Вiн начебто пам’ятав дощ, вiтер i снiг, але як довго потерпав вiд негоди – два днi чи два тижнi, – цього не знав.

Вiн довго лежав не рухаючись, i щедре сонце проливало на нього своi променi, живлячи теплом його жалюгiдне тiло. Гарний день, подумав вiн. Може, йому вдасться визначити, де вiн перебувае. Зробивши болiсне зусилля, вiн повернувся на бiк. Унизу неквапно текла широка рiчка. То була незнайома рiчка, i це його здивувало. Вiн повiльно проводжав поглядом ii потiк, який широкими петлями звивався мiж тьмяних, голих пагорбiв, iще бiльш похмурих, тьмяних i низьких, нiж тi, що вiн бачив досi. Повiльно, байдуже, без будь-якого почуття вiн простежив шлях незнайомоi рiчки до самого обрiю i побачив, що вона впадае у свiтле, сяюче море. Та навiть це його не зворушило. Дуже дивно, подумав вiн. Це видiння або марево, – мабуть, таки видiння, злий жарт розладнаноi свiдомостi. Вiн iще бiльше впевнився в цьому, побачивши корабель, що стояв на якорi посеред осяйного моря. Вiн на мить заплющив очi, потiм розплющив знову. Дивно, що видiння не зникло! А втiм, не дивно. Вiн знав, що в серцi цiеi безплiдноi землi немае нi моря, нi кораблiв, так само як немае набоiв у його порожнiй рушницi.

Вiн почув за спиною шумний подих – чи то уривчасте зiтхання, чи кашель. Дуже повiльно, долаючи слабкiсть i зацiпенiння, повернувся на другий бiк. Поблизу вiн не побачив нiчого, проте чекав терпляче. Зiтхання i кашель прозвучали знову, i мiж двома гострими каменями, не бiльш нiж за двадцять футiв вiд себе, вiн побачив сiру голову вовка. Гострi вуха не стирчали вгору, як то вiн бачив у iнших вовкiв; очi були каламутнi й налитi кров’ю, голова немiчно звисала долу. Звiр весь час мружився вiд сонячного свiтла. Певно, вiн був хворий. Подивившись на людину, вовк знову тяжко зiтхнув i закашляв.

Оце, зрештою, не видiння, подумав чоловiк i знов повернувся, щоб побачити справжнiй свiт, не затулений пеленою марень. Але море так само блищало вдалинi, i корабель було видно добре. Може, це все-таки дiйснiсть? Вiн заплющив очi й довго думав, а тодi зрозумiв усе. Вiн iшов на пiвнiчний схiд, вiддаляючись вiд рiчки Дiз, i вийшов у долину Коппермайну. Ця широка, повiльна рiка – це Коппермайн. Це сяюче море – Льодовитий океан. Корабель – це китобiйне судно, що запливло далеко на схiд вiд гирла рiчки Маккензi, i воно стоiть на якорi у затоцi Коронацii. Вiн пригадав карту Компанii Гудзонськоi затоки, бачену колись давно, i йому все стало ясно i зрозумiло.

Вiн сiв i почав думати про те, що слiд вдiяти негайно. Зробленi з ковдри онучi прорвалися наскрiзь, i його ноги перетворилися на безформнi шматки кривавого м’яса. Останню ковдру вiн використав. Рушницю i нiж загубив. Капелюх також десь подiвся, але згорток iз сiрниками, що лежав у проолiеному аркушику у кисетi в нього за пазухою, лишився на мiсцi й був сухий. Вiн глянув на годинник. Була одинадцята, годинник усе ще йшов – мабуть, вiн не забував його заводити.

Вiн був спокiйним i зосередженим. Хоча дуже ослаб, у нього нiчого не болiло. Їсти не хотiлося. Думка про iжу навiть була йому неприемна, i все, що вiн робив, було суто розумовим рiшенням. Вiн обiрвав холошi до колiн i обмотав ними ноги. Чомусь захопив iз собою жерстяне цеберко. Певно ж, треба буде випити окропу, перш нiж вирушити у путь до корабля – як вiн передбачав, дуже тяжкий.

Його рухи були повiльнi. Вiн трусився, немов у паралiчi. Коли хотiв назбирати сухого моху, то виявив, що не може звестися на ноги. Вiн пробував знову й знову – i зрештою поповз на чотирьох. Була мить, коли вiн пiдповз дуже близько до хворого вовка. Звiр неохоче вiдсунувся вбiк i облизнувся, насилу ворушачи язиком. Чоловiк помiтив, що язик не мае здорового червоного кольору, як зазвичай, – вiн був жовтаво-бурий, укритий жорстким напiвзасохлим слизом.

Випивши окропу, чоловiк вiдчув, що може встати i навiть iти – так, як iде ледь жива людина. Щохвилi йому доводилося вiдпочивати. Його кроки були хиткi й непевнi – i такою ж непевною, хиткою ходою плентався за ним вовк. І цiеi ночi, коли сяюче море потонуло в темрявi, чоловiк зрозумiв, що наблизився до нього не бiльше, нiж на чотири милi.

Уночi вiн чув кашель хворого вовка, а часом – крики оленят. Довкола було життя, але сильне, мiцне життя, повне снаги; i вiн знав, що хворий вовк плентаеться слiдом за хворою людиною в надii, що людина помре першою. Вранцi, розплющивши очi, вiн зустрiв тоскний i голодний погляд звiра. Зiщулений, з пiдiбганим хвостом, вовк був схожий на жалюгiдного миршавого собаку. Вiн тремтiв пiд холодним ранковим вiтром i злiсно вишкiрився, коли чоловiк заговорив до нього голосом, що бiльше нагадував хрипкий шепiт.

Зiйшло яскраве сонце, i весь ранок чоловiк iшов до корабля, спотикаючись i падаючи. Погода була чудова. Стояло коротке бабине лiто пiвнiчних широт. Воно триватиме з тиждень – а може, завтра чи пiслязавтра скiнчиться.

Опiвднi вiн побачив слiди. То були слiди iншоi людини, що не йшла, а повзла на чотирьох. Вiн подумав, що це, мабуть, слiди Бiлла, проте подумав мляво, з байдужiстю. Йому було однаково. Власне, вiн уже не мав нiяких вiдчуттiв. Перестав навiть вiдчувати бiль. Шлунок i нерви наче заснули. Проте життя, що було в ньому, гнало його вперед. Вiн був дуже слабкий, але життя в ньому не бажало вмирати. І тому, що воно не бажало вмирати, чоловiк усе ще iв болотянi ягоди i пiчкурiв, пив гарячу воду i не зводив очей iз хворого вовка.

Вiн iшов по слiду iншоi людини, що повзла рачки, i скоро побачив ii кiнець – кiлька обгризених кiсток на вогкому моху, серед слiдiв вовчих лап. Побачив вiн i тугий мiшечок iз оленячоi шкiри, схожий на його власний, – розiрваний гострими зубами. Вiн пiдняв мiшечок, хоча такий тягар був надто важким для його ослаблих пальцiв. Бiлл все ж таки не кинув його до останньоi митi. Ха-ха! Вiн iще посмiеться з Бiлла. Вiн виживе i вiзьме мiшечок iз собою, на той корабель посеред сяючого моря. Його смiх був хрипким i страшним, нiби каркання крука, i хворий вовк похмуро завив у вiдповiдь. Чоловiк одразу замовк. Як йому смiятися з Бiлла, якщо це Бiлл, якщо цi кiстки, бiло-рожевi, дочиста обгризенi кiстки – це i е Бiлл?

Вiн одвернувся. Так, Бiлл його покинув; але вiн не вiзьме це золото i не буде смоктати кiстки Бiлла. А Бiлл зробив би саме так, опинившись на його мiсцi, думав чоловiк, плентаючись далi.

Вiн вийшов до маленького озерця. Схилившись над водою, щоб пошукати пiчкурiв, вiн вiдсахнувся, мов ужалений. Побачив вiдбиток свого обличчя. Це було так страшно, що навiть його притупленi почуття пробудились у поривi жаху. В озерцi плавали три пiчкурi, але води було надто багато, щоб ii вичерпати; i пiсля кiлькох невдалих спроб спiймати риб у цеберко вiн облишив цю затiю. Боявся, що вiд слабкостi впаде у воду i потоне. З цiеi ж причини вiн не зважився попливти по рiчцi на однiй iз колод, що були розкиданi по пiщаному березi.

Того дня вiн скоротив вiдстань мiж собою i кораблем на три милi; а наступного – на двi, бо тепер вiн повз рачки, як Бiлл. Надвечiр п’ятого дня до корабля все ще лишалося близько семи миль, а вiн мiг пройти за день хiба що одну. Бабине лiто все ще тривало, i вiн повз, весь час непритомнiючи, а хворий вовк, кашляючи та важко дихаючи, плентався за ним слiдом. Колiна в чоловiка були роздертi до м’яса, як i ступнi, i хоч вiн обмотав ноги ганчiр’ям з сорочки, червоний слiд тягся за ним через мох i камiння. Якось, озирнувшись назад, вiн побачив, що вовк жадiбно лиже цей кривавий слiд, i ясно уявив собi, яким буде його кiнець… якщо тiльки… якщо вiн сам не вб’е вовка. І тодi почалася найжахливiша трагедiя буття, котру можна собi уявити, – знесилена людина повзла, а знесилений вовк плентався за нею слiдом. Двi iстоти тягли своi напiвмертвi тiла через пустелю i хотiли вiдiбрати життя одна в одноi.

Якби вовк був здоровий, чоловiк, мабуть, не опирався б. Але сама думка про те, що вiн стае поживою такого бридкого, кволого створiння, була йому огидна. Це викликало в нього вiдразу. У нього знов почалися провали свiдомостi й видiння, i свiтлi промiжки ставали все бiльш нечастими та короткими.

Одного разу вiн прокинувся, почувши хрипке дихання в себе над вухом. Вовк вiдскочив назад, спiткнувся i впав вiд слабкостi. Це було смiшно, але чоловiковi так не здалося. Проте страшно йому також не було. Вiн надто багато пережив, аби боятись. На мить його думки прояснiли, i вiн лежав розмiрковуючи. До корабля лишалося щонайбiльше чотири милi. Вiн ясно побачив його, протерши затуманенi очi, побачив бiле вiтрило маленького човна, що розтинав блискучу водну гладiнь. Але вiн не проповзе цi чотири милi. Вiн це знав, але ставився до цього спокiйно. Вiн знав, що не проповзе i пiвмилi. Але жити йому все ж таки хотiлося. Було б нерозумно померти пiсля всього, що йому довелося пережити. Надто вже багато вимагала вiд нього доля. І, вмираючи, вiн зневажав смерть. Мабуть, це було просто божевiллям, але навiть у обiймах смертi вiн кидав iй виклик i не хотiв коритися.

Вiн заплющив очi i з надзвичайною обережнiстю зiбрався на силi. Вiн примушував себе переборювати млiсть, яка, наче приплив, затопила все його ество. Ця млiсть здiймалась у ньому, наче хвиля, i поступово затьмарювала свiдомiсть. Часом вiн тонув, вiдчайдушно силкуючись виплисти iз глибини забуття; i незбагненна сила душi, збираючи докупи рештки його волi, допомагала йому триматись.

Вiн непорушно лежав на спинi й чув, як до нього повiльно наближаеться уривчасте дихання вовка. Воно чулося все ближче, все ближче, i час нiби зупинився, а чоловiк лежав непорушно. Дихання вчувалося над самим вухом. Жорсткий сухий язик торкнув його щоку, мов наждачний папiр. Руки в нього рвонулися вгору – принаймнi вiн хотiв простягти iх швидко. Пальцi, зiгнутi, мов пазурi, схопили порожнечу. Швидкiсть i влучнiсть потребують сили, а сил у нього вже не було.

Вовк був страшенно терплячим. Чоловiк був терплячим також. Пiвдня вiн лежав нерухомо, долаючи забуття i стежачи за iстотою, яка хотiла його з’iсти i яку вiн хотiв би з’iсти сам. Інодi хвиля млостi накривала його, i вiн поринав у довгий сон; та весь час, i при тямi, й увi снi, вiн чекав тiеi митi, коли почуе хрипке дихання i вiдчуе дотик жорсткого язика.

Дихання вiн не почув, але прокинувся вiд того, що вовчий язик лизнув йому руку. Вiн чекав. Ікла повiльно стискали його руку, потiм тиск посилився; вовк iз останнiх сил намагався вп’ястися зубами у здобич, якоi так давно чекав. Але й чоловiк чекав довго, i його скривавлена рука стиснула вовчу щелепу. І поки вовк спроквола борсався, така ж квола рука повiльно стискала його щелепу, а друга рука простяглася до вовка i схопила його. Ще п’ять хвилин, i чоловiк навалився на вовка всiм тiлом. Його рукам не вистачало сили, щоб задушити звiра, але чоловiк мiцно притулився обличчям до вовчоi шиi, i його рот був повний шерстi. За пiвгодини вiн вiдчув, що до рота йому ллеться гарячий струмiнь. Це було неприемно. Це було так, наче у шлунок вливали розплавлений свинець, i чоловiк лише зусиллям волi змушував себе терпiти. Потiм вiн перевернувся на спину i заснув.

На китобiйному суднi «Бедфорд» було кiлька учасникiв науковоi експедицii. З палуби вони помiтили якийсь дивний об’ект на березi. Вiн пересувався по пiску до моря. Люди не могли зрозумiти, що це таке, i, як личить ученим, сiли у човен i рушили до берега. Там вони побачили живе створiння, котре навряд чи можна було назвати людиною. Воно було слiпе, непритомне i звивалося на пiску, мов велетенський хробак. Йому майже не вдавалося зрушити з мiсця, але воно було упертим i, звиваючись та борсаючись, просувалося вперед футiв на двадцять за годину.

Через три тижнi чоловiк, лежачи у постелi на китобiйному кораблi «Бедфорд», не стримуючи слiз, що котилися по його змарнiлому обличчю, розповiв, хто вiн такий i що йому довелося пережити. Вiн безладно говорив щось про свою матiр, про сонячну Пiвденну Калiфорнiю, про будиночок серед квiтiв i апельсинових дерев.

Минуло всього кiлька днiв, i вiн сидiв за столом разом iз ученими й офiцерами судна. Вiн тiшився, бачачи довкола себе так багато iжi, й стривожено дивився, як iжа зникае у ротi iнших людей. Варто було комусь узяти шматок, i в його очах з’являвся вираз глибокого жалю. Вiн був при здоровому глуздi, але за обiдом ненавидiв усiх довкола. Його переслiдував страх, що iжi не вистачить. Вiн розпитував про запаси iжi i кока, i юнгу, i капiтана. Вони безнастанно заспокоювали його; але вiн iм не вiрив i крадькома зазирав до комори, щоб переконатися на власнi очi.

Потiм завважили, що вiн гладшае. Вiн що не день набирав вагу. Ученi хитали головами i висловлювали рiзнi здогади. Вони почали обмежувати його в iжi, але вiн ставав усе товстiшим i ширшав у попереку.

Матроси потай усмiхалися. Вони знали, що й до чого. І коли вченi почали стежити за ним, то дiзналися про це також. Пiсля снiданку вiн тихцем iшов на палубу i, наче жебрак, iз простягнутою рукою пiдходив до когось iз матросiв. Той усмiхався i давав йому кусень сухаря. Чоловiк жадiбно хапав подачку, дивився на неi, мов скнара на золото, i запихав за пазуху. Так само пiдгодовували його й усi iншi матроси.

Ученi не сказали йому нiчого. Вони лишили його у спокоi, але потай оглянули його лiжко. Воно було напхане сухарями; у матрацi було повно сухарiв; у всiх закутках лежали сухарi. І все ж таки чоловiк був при здоровому глуздi. Це була лише пересторога на той випадок, якщо знов доведеться голодувати. Вченi сказали, що це минеться; i так воно й сталося, перш нiж «Бедфорд» став на якiр у Сан-Франциско.




The White Silence


“Carmen won’t last more than a couple of days.” Mason spat out a chunk of ice and surveyed the poor animal ruefully, then put her foot in his mouth and proceeded to bite out the ice which clustered cruelly between the toes.

“I never saw a dog with a highfalutin’ name that ever was worth a rap,” he said, as he concluded his task and shoved her aside. “They just fade away and die under the responsibility. Did ye ever see one go wrong with a sensible name like Cassiar, Siwash, or Husky? No, sir! Take a look at Shookum here; he’s—”

Snap! The lean brute flashed up, the white teeth just missing Mason’s throat.

“Ye will, will ye?” A shrewd clout behind the ear with the butt of the dog whip stretched the animal in the snow, quivering softly, a yellow slaver dripping from its fangs.

“As I was saying, just look at Shookum here—he’s got the spirit. Bet ye he eats Carmen before the week’s out.”

“I’ll bank another proposition against that,” replied Malemute Kid, reversing the frozen bread placed before the fire to thaw. “We’ll eat Shookum before the trip is over. What d’ye say, Ruth?”

The Indian woman settled the coffee with a piece of ice, glanced from Malemute Kid to her husband, then at the dogs, but vouchsafed no reply. It was such a palpable truism that none was necessary. Two hundred miles of unbroken trail in prospect, with a scant six days’ grub for themselves and none for the dogs, could admit no other alternative. The two men and the woman grouped about the fire and began their meager meal. The dogs lay in their harnesses, for it was a midday halt, and watched each mouthful enviously. “No more lunches after today,” said Malemute Kid. “And we’ve got to keep a close eye on the dogs, they’re getting vicious. They’d just as soon pull a fellow down as not, if they get a chance.”

“And I was president of an Epworth once, and taught in the Sunday school.” Having irrelevantly delivered himself of this, Mason fell into a dreamy contemplation of his steaming moccasins, but was aroused by Ruth filling his cup. “Thank God, we’ve got slathers of tea! I’ve seen it growing, down in Tennessee. What wouldn’t I give for a hot corn pone just now! Never mind, Ruth; you won’t starve much longer, nor wear moccasins either.”

The woman threw off her gloom at this, and in her eyes welled up a great love for her white lord—the first white man she had ever seen—the first man whom she had known to treat a woman as something better than a mere animal or beast of burden.

“Yes, Ruth,” continued her husband, having recourse to the macaronic jargon in which it was alone possible for them to understand each other; “wait till we clean up and pull for the Outside. We’ll take the White Man’s canoe and go to the Salt Water. Yes, bad water, rough water—great mountains dance up and down all the time. And so big, so far, so far away—you travel ten sleep, twenty sleep, forty sleep”—he graphically enumerated the days on his fingers—“all the time water, bad water. Then you come to great village, plenty people, just the same mosquitoes next summer. Wigwams oh, so high—ten, twenty pines. Hi-yu skookum!”

He paused impotently, cast an appealing glance at Ma-lemute Kid, then laboriously placed the twenty pines, end on end, by sign language. Malemute Kid smiled with cheery cynicism; but Ruth’s eyes were wide with wonder, and with pleasure; for she half believed he was joking, and such condescension pleased her poor woman’s heart.

“And then you step into a—a box, and pouf! up you go.” He tossed his empty cup in the air by way of illustration and, as be deftly caught it, cried: “And biff! down you come. Oh, great medicine men! You go Fort Yukon, I go Arctic City—twenty-five sleep—big string, all the time—I catch him string—I say, ’Hello, Ruth! How are ye?’—and you say, ’Is that my good husband?’—and I say, ’Yes’—and you say, ’No can bake good bread, no more soda’—then I say, ’Look in cache, under flour; good-by.’ You look and catch plenty soda. All the time you Fort Yukon, me Arctic City. Hi-yu medicineman!”

Ruth smiled so ingenuously at the fairy story that both men burst into laughter. A row among the dogs cut short the wonders of the Outside, and by the time the snarling combatants were separated, she had lashed the sleds and all was ready for the trail.

“Mush! Baldy! Hi! Mush on!” Mason worked his whip smartly and, as the dogs whined low in the traces, broke out the sled with the gee pole. Ruth followed with the second team, leaving Malemute Kid, who had helped her start, to bring up the rear. Strong man, brute that he was, capable of felling an ox at a blow, he could not bear to beat the poor animals, but humored them as a dog driver rarely does—nay, almost wept with them in their misery.

“Come, mush on there, you poor sore-footed brutes!” he murmured, after several ineffectual attempts to start the load. But his patience was at last rewarded, and though whimpering with pain, they hastened to join their fellows.

No more conversation; the toil of the trail will not permit such extravagance. And of all deadening labors, that of the Northland trail is the worst. Happy is the man who can weather a day’s travel at the price of silence, and that on a beaten track.

And of all heartbreaking labors, that of breaking trail is the worst. At every step the great webbed shoe sinks till the snow is level with the knee. Then up, straight up, the deviation of a fraction of an inch being a certain precursor of disaster, the snowshoe must be lifted till the surface is cleared; then forward, down, and the other foot is raised perpendicularly for the matter of half a yard. He who tries this for the first time, if haply he avoids bringing his shoes in dangerous propinquity and measures not his length on the treacherous footing, will give up exhausted at the end of a hundred yards; he who can keep out of the way of the dogs for a whole day may well crawl into his sleeping bag with a clear conscience and a pride which passeth all understanding; and he who travels twenty sleeps on the Long Trail is a man whom the gods may envy.

The afternoon wore on, and, with the awe born of the White Silence, the voiceless travelers bent to their work. Nature has many tricks wherewith she convinces man of his finity—the ceaseless flow of the tides, the fury of the storm, the shock of the earthquake, the long roll of heaven’s artillery—but the most tremendous, the most stupefying of all, is the passive phase of the White Silence. All movement ceases, the sky clears, the heavens are as brass; the slightest whisper seems sacrilege, and man becomes timid, affrighted at the sound of his own voice. Sole speck of life journeying across the ghostly wastes of a dead world, he trembles at his audacity, realizes that his is a maggot’s life, nothing more. Strange thoughts arise unsummoned, and the mystery of all things strives for utterance. And the fear of death, of God, of the universe, comes over him—the hope of the Resurrection and the Life, the yearning for immortality, the vain striving of the imprisoned essence—it is then, if ever, man walks alone with God.

So wore the day away. The river took a great bend, and Mason headed his team for the cutoff across the narrow neck of land. But the dogs balked at the high bank. Again and again, though Ruth and Malemute Kid were shoving on the sled, they slipped back. Then came the concerted effort. The miserable creatures, weak from hunger, exerted their last strength. Up—up—the sled poised on the top of the bank; but the leader swung the string of dogs behind him to the right, fouling Mason’s snowshoes. The result was grievous. Mason was whipped off his feet; one of the dogs fell in the traces; and the sled toppled back, dragging everything to the bottom again.

Slash! the whip fell among the dogs savagely, especially upon the one which had fallen.

“Don’t, Mason,” entreated Malemute Kid; “the poor devil’s on its last legs. Wait and we’ll put my team on.”

Mason deliberately withheld the whip till the last word had fallen, then out flashed the long lash, completely curling about the offending creature’s body. Carmen—for it was Carmen—cowered in the snow, cried piteously, then rolled over on her side.

It was a tragic moment, a pitiful incident of the trail— a dying dog, two comrades in anger. Ruth glanced solicitously from man to man. But Malemute Kid restrained himself, though there was a world of reproach in his eyes, and, bending over the dog, cut the traces. No word was spoken. The teams were double-spanned, and the difficulty overcome; the sleds were under way again, the dying dog dragging herself along in the rear. As long as an animal can travel, it is not shot, and this last chance is accorded it—the crawling into camp, if it can, in the hope of a moose being killed.

Already penitent for his angry action, but too stubborn to make amends, Mason toiled on at the head of the cavalcade, little dreaming that danger hovered in the air. The timber clustered thick in the sheltered bottom, and through this they threaded their way. Fifty feet or more from the trail towered a lofty pine. For generations it had stood there, and for generations destiny had had this one end in view—perhaps the same had been decreed of Mason.

He stooped to fasten the loosened thong of his moccasin. The sleds came to a halt, and the dogs lay down in the snow without a whimper. The stillness was weird; not a breath rustled the frost-encrusted forest; the cold and silence of outer space had chilled the heart and smote the trembling lips of nature. A sigh pulsed through the air—they did not seem to actually hear it, but rather felt it, like the premonition of movement in a motionless void. Then the great tree, burdened with its weight of years and snow, played its last part in the tragedy of life. He heard the warning crash and attempted to spring up but, almost erect, caught the blow squarely on the shoulder.

The sudden danger, the quick death—how often had Malemute Kid faced it! The pine needles were still quivering as he gave his commands and sprang into action. Nor did the Indian girl faint or raise her voice in idle wailing, as might many of her white sisters. At his order, she threw her weight on the end of a quickly extemporized handspike, easing the pressure and listening to her husband’s groans, while Malemute Kid attacked the tree with his axe. The steel rang merrily as it bit into the frozen trunk, each stroke being accompanied by a forced, audible respiration, the “Huh!” “Huh!” of the woodsman.

At last the Kid laid the pitiable thing that was once a man in the snow. But worse than his comrade’s pain was the dumb anguish in the woman’s face, the blended look of hopeful, hopeless query. Little was said; those of the Northland are early taught the futility of words and the inestimable value of deeds. With the temperature at sixty-five below zero, a man cannot lie many minutes in the snow and live. So the sled lashings were cut, and the sufferer, rolled in furs, laid on a couch of boughs. Before him roared a fire, built of the very wood which wrought the mishap. Behind and partially over him was stretched the primitive fly—a piece of canvas, which caught the radiating heat and threw it back and down upon him—a trick which men may know who study physics at the fount.

And men who have shared their bed with death know when the call is sounded. Mason was terribly crushed. The most cursory examination revealed it. His right arm, leg, and back were broken; his limbs were paralyzed from the hips; and the likelihood of internal injuries was large. An occasional moan was his only sign of life.

No hope; nothing to be done. The pitiless night crept slowly by—Ruth’s portion, the despairing stoicism of her race, and Malemute Kid adding new lines to his face of bronze. In fact, Mason suffered least of all, for he spent his time in eastern Tennessee, in the Great Smoky Mountains, living over the scenes of his childhood. And most pathetic was the melody of his long-forgotten Southern vernacular, as he raved of swimming holes and coon hunts and watermelon raids. It was as Greek to Ruth, but the Kid understood and felt—felt as only one can feel who has been shut out for years from all that civilization means.

Morning brought consciousness to the stricken man, and Malemute Kid bent closer to catch his whispers.

“You remember when we foregathered on the Tanana, four years come next ice run? I didn’t care so much for her then. It was more like she was pretty, and there was a smack of excitement about it, I think. But d’ye know, I’ve come to think a heap of her. She’s been a good wife to me, always at my shoulder in the pinch. And when it comes to trading, you know there isn’t her equal. D’ye recollect the time she shot the Moosehorn Rapids to pull you and me off that rock, the bullets whipping the water like hailstones?—and the time of the famine at Nuklukyeto?—or when she raced the ice run to bring the news? Yes, she’s been a good wife to me, better’n that other one. Didn’t know I’d been there? Never told you, eh? Well, I tried it once, down in the States. That’s why I’m here. Been raised together, too. I came away to give her a chance for divorce. She got it.

“But that’s got nothing to do with Ruth. I had thought of cleaning up and pulling for the Outside next year—her and I—but it’s too late. Don’t send her back to her people, Kid. It’s beastly hard for a woman to go back. Think of it!—nearly four years on our bacon and beans and flour and dried fruit, and then to go back to her fish and caribou. It’s not good for her to have tried our ways, to come to know they’re better’n her people’s, and then return to them. Take care of her, Kid—why don’t you?—but no, you always fought shy of them—and you never told me why you came to this country. Be kind to her, and send her back to the States as soon as you can. But fix it so as she can come back—liable to get homesick, you know.

“And the youngster—it’s drawn us closer, Kid. I only hope it is a boy. Think of it!—flesh of my flesh, Kid. He mustn’t stop in this country. And if it’s a girl, why, she can’t. Sell my furs; they’ll fetch at least five thousand, and I’ve got as much more with the company. And handle my interests with yours. I think that bench claim will show up. See that he gets a good schooling; and, Kid, above all, don’t let him come back. This country was not made for white men.

“I’m a gone man, Kid. Three or four sleeps at the best. You’ve got to go on. You must go on! Remember, it’s my wife, it’s my boy—O God! I hope it’s a boy! You can’t stay by me—and I charge you, a dying man, to pull on.”

“Give me three days,” pleaded Malemute Kid. “You may change for the better; something may turn up.”

“No.”

“Just three days.”

“You must pull on.”

“Two days.”

“It’s my wife and my boy, Kid. You would not ask it.”

“One day.”

“No, no! I charge—”

“Only one day. We can shave it through on the grub, and I might knock over a moose.”

“No—all right; one day, but not a minute more. And, Kid, don’t—don’t leave me to face it alone. Just a shot, one pull on the trigger. You understand. Think of it! Think of it! Flesh of my flesh, and I’ll never live to see him!

“Send Ruth here. I want to say good-by and tell her that she must think of the boy and not wait till I’m dead. She might refuse to go with you if I didn’t. Good-by, old man; good-by.

“Kid! I say—a—sink a hole above the pup, next to the slide. I panned out forty cents on my shovel there.”

“And, Kid!” he stooped lower to catch the last faint words, the dying man’s surrender of his pride. “I’m sorry—for—you know—Carmen.”

Leaving the girl crying softly over her man, Malemute Kid slipped into his parka and snowshoes, tucked his rifle under his arm, and crept away into the forest. He was no tyro in the stern sorrows of the Northland, but never had he faced so stiff a problem as this. In the abstract, it was a plain, mathematical proposition—three possible lives as against one doomed one. But now he hesitated. For five years, shoulder to shoulder, on the rivers and trails, in the camps and mines, facing death by field and flood and famine, had they knitted the bonds of their comradeship. So close was the tie that he had often been conscious of a vague jealousy of Ruth, from the first time she had come between. And now it must be severed by his own hand.

Though he prayed for a moose, just one moose, all game seemed to have deserted the land, and nightfall found the exhausted man crawling into camp, light-handed, heavy-hearted. An uproar from the dogs and shrill cries from Ruth hastened him.

Bursting into the camp, he saw the girl in the midst of the snarling pack, laying about her with an axe. The dogs had broken the iron rule of their masters and were rushing the grub. He joined the issue with his rifle reversed, and the hoary game of natural selection was played out with all the ruthlessness of its primeval environment. Rifle and axe went up and down, hit or missed with monotonous regularity; lithe bodies flashed, with wild eyes and dripping fangs; and man and beast fought for supremacy to the bitterest conclusion. Then the beaten brutes crept to the edge of the firelight, licking their wounds, voicing their misery to the stars.

The whole stock of dried salmon had been devoured, and perhaps five pounds of flour remained to tide them over two hundred miles of wilderness. Ruth returned to her husband, while Malemute Kid cut up the warm body of one of the dogs, the skull of which had been crushed by the axe. Every portion was carefully put away, save the hide and offal, which were cast to his fellows of the moment before.

Morning brought fresh trouble. The animals were turning on each other. Carmen, who still clung to her slender thread of life, was downed by the pack. The lash fell among them unheeded. They cringed and cried under the blows, but refused to scatter till the last wretched bit had disappeared—bones, hide, hair, everything.

Malemute Kid went about his work, listening to Mason, who was back in Tennessee, delivering tangled discourses and wild exhortations to his brethren of other days.

Taking advantage of neighboring pines, he worked rapidly, and Ruth watched him make a cache similar to those sometimes used by hunters to preserve their meat from the wolverines and dogs. One after the other, he bent the tops of two small pines toward each other and nearly to the ground, making them fast with thongs of moosehide. Then he beat the dogs into submission and harnessed them to two of the sleds, loading the same with everything but the furs which enveloped Mason. These he wrapped and lashed tightly about him, fastening either end of the ropes to the bent pines. A single stroke of his hunting knife would release them and send the body high in the air.

Ruth had received her husband’s last wishes and made no struggle. Poor girl, she had learned the lesson of obedience well. From a child, she had bowed, and seen all women bow, to the lords of creation, and it did not seem in the nature of things for woman to resist. The Kid permitted her one outburst of grief, as she kissed her husband—her own people had no such custom—then led her to the foremost sled and helped her into her snowshoes. Blindly, instinctively, she took the gee pole and whip, and “mushed” the dogs out on the trail. Then he returned to Mason, who had fallen into a coma, and long after she was out of sight crouched by the fire, waiting, hoping, praying for his comrade to die.

It is not pleasant to be alone with painful thoughts in the White Silence. The silence of gloom is merciful, shrouding one as with protection and breathing a thousand intangible sympathies; but the bright White Silence, clear and cold, under steely skies, is pitiless.

An hour passed—two hours—but the man would not die. At high noon the sun, without raising its rim above the southern horizon, threw a suggestion of fire athwart the heavens, then quickly drew it back. Malemute Kid roused and dragged himself to his comrade’s side. He cast one glance about him. The White Silence seemed to sneer, and a great fear came upon him. There was a sharp report; Mason swung into his aerial sepulchre, and Malemute Kid lashed the dogs into a wild gallop as he fled across the snow.




Бiла тиша


– Кармен бiльше двох днiв не витримае.

Мейсон виплюнув шматок льоду i похмуро глянув на бiдолашну тварину; потiм пiднiс ii лапу до рота i почав вiдгризати лiд, що намерз мiж кiгтями.

– Нiколи не бачив, аби собака з химерним iменем був чогось вартий, – мовив вiн, скiнчивши свое заняття, i вiдштовхнув собаку геть. – Вони тiльки переводяться нiнащо, а потiм здихають. Ти колись бачив, щоб iз собакою, якого звати просто Касьяр, Сиваш або Хаскi, сталося щось лихе? Егеж, дзуськи! От поглянь на Шукума; вiн…

Хоп! Охлялий звiр стрибнув угору, i бiлi зуби клацнули бiля горла Мейсона.

– Ти що це робиш, га?

Жорстокий удар рукiв’ям нагая за вухом повалив собаку в снiг. Вiн трусився, з пащi капала жовта слина.

– Я ж казав, поглянь на Шукума. Оцей не схибить! Закладаюся, ще до кiнця тижня вiн зжере Кармен.

– А я пропоную робити ставку на iнше, – озвався Мейлмют Кiд, перевертаючи хлiб, що вiдтавав бiля вогню. – Закладаюся, ми ще до кiнця нашоi подорожi з’iмо Шукума. Що скажеш, Рут?

Індiанка поклала у каву грудочку льоду, перевела погляд iз Мейлмюта Кiда на свого чоловiка, потiм на собак, але вiдповiсти не зважилася. Ця очевидна iстина не вимагала пiдтверджень. Їх чекали двiстi миль дороги по непроiзному шляху, iжi для них самих лишилося на шiсть днiв, а для собак i зовсiм нiчого, – отже, вибору не було. Двое чоловiкiв i жiнка пiдсунулися до вогнища i приступили до свого злиденного снiданку. Собаки лежали у запряжцi, бо настав час денного перепочинку, i заздрiсно проводжали поглядом кожний шматок.

– Вiд завтра – нiяких снiданкiв, – сказав Мейлмют Кiд. – І треба наглядати за собаками, а то вони геть знахабнiли. Тiльки дай iм волю, горлянку тобi перегризуть.

– А я ж колись був старостою Епвортськоi парафii i викладав у недiльнiй школi!

І, мовивши це не знати для чого, Мейсон поринув у дрiмотне споглядання своiх мокасинiв, од яких пiднiмалася пара. Та Рут перервала його роздуми, наливши йому чашку кави.

– Дякувати Боговi, чаю в нас досить! Я бачив, як вiн росте – там, у Теннессi. Чого б я зараз не дав за гарячу кукурудзяну перепiчку! Не журися, Рут; скоро тобi не доведеться голодувати, та й мокасини носити не буде потреби.

Жiнка, почувши цi слова, трохи повеселiшала, i ii очi засвiтилися любов’ю до ii бiлого володаря – першого бiлого чоловiка, якого вона зустрiла, першого чоловiка на ii пам’ятi, який не вважав жiнку за нерозумну тварину чи в’ючну худобу.

– Так, Рут, – повiв далi чоловiк тiею химерною мовою, якою вони лишень i могли порозумiтися, – зачекай трохи, скоро ми вийдемо звiдси до далекого краю. Вiзьмемо каное бiлоi людини i попливемо до Солоноi Води. Так, погана вода, зла вода – наче великi гори весь час стрибають угору та вниз. А ii так багато, пливти по нiй так далеко! Їдеш десять снiв, двадцять снiв, сорок, – вiн полiчив днi на пальцях, – i весь час вода, погана вода. Потiм приiдемо до великого селища, людей там сила, як ото комарiв улiтку. Вiгвами – ого-го, якi високi, як десять, двадцять сосон! Хай-ю скукум!…

Вiн затнувся, кинувши благальний погляд на Мейлмюта Кiда, потiм почав старанно показувати знаками, як можна поставити одна на одну двадцять сосон. Мейлмют Кiд глузливо всмiхнувся; та очi Рут розширилися вiд подиву i втiхи. Вона майже не вiрила у слова чоловiка, гадала, що вiн жартуе, i така ласка тiшила бiдне жiноче серце.

– А потiм сядемо у… у скриню i – пф! – поiхали. – Вiн пiдкинув порожню чашку в повiтря i, спритно впiймавши ii, закричав: – А потiм – пф-ф! – i приiхали. О, великi шамани! Ти iдеш у Форт-Юкон, а я до Арктiк-сiтi – двадцять п’ять снiв – велика мотузка тягнеться, я хапаю мотузку i кажу: «Алло, Рут! Як ся маеш?» – а ти кажеш: «Це ти, чоловiченьку?» Я кажу: «Так». А ти кажеш: «Не можна спекти гарний хлiб: соди немае». Я кажу: «Подивися в коморi, пiд борошном. Бувай!» Ти iдеш до комори i знаходиш соду. І весь час ти у Форт-Юконi, я – в Арктiк-сiтi. Отакi вони, шамани!

Рут так наiвно всмiхнулася цiй чарiвнiй iсторii, що обое чоловiкiв розреготалися вголос. Та собача гризня надворi поклала край оповiдi про дива далекого краю, а на той час, коли собак угамували, жiнка вже встигла прив’язати нарти, i все було готово для подорожi.

– Ану, Лисий! Ану, руш!

Мейсон ляснув нагаем i, коли собаки зрушили з мiсця, вiдштовхнув нарти поворотною жердиною. Рут iхала за ним слiдом на другiй запряжцi, а Мейлмют Кiд, допомагаючи iй рушити, лишався позаду. Дужий i суворий чоловiк, здатний ударом звалити бика, вiн не мiг бити нещасних тварин i жалiв iх, що погоничi собак роблять не часто. Бувало, вiн ледь не плакав iз жалю, дивлячись на них.

– Ану, вперед, кульгавцi ви бiдолашнi! – пробурчав вiн пiсля кiлькох марних спроб зрушити нарти. Але зрештою його терпiння було винагороджене, i собаки, хоч i з болiсним виском, поспiшили вслiд за своiми товаришами.

Розмови припинилися. Знегоди шляху не дозволяють такоi розкошi. А подорож у пiвнiчнiм краю – це найтяжча праця з усiх, що е в свiтi. Щасливий той, хто цiною мовчання витримае день такоi дороги – хоча б по битому шляху.

Але найтяжча праця – торувати шлях. При кожному кроцi широкi плетенi лижi провалюються, i снiг сягае колiн. Потiм треба витягти ногу, тримаючи ii прямо – бо вiдхилення убiк хоч на дюйм може призвести до бiди, – поки лижа не очиститься вiд снiгу. Тодi треба ступити вперед i пiднiмати другу ногу, також щонайменше на пiв’ярда. Той, хто робить це вперше – навiть якщо не перечепиться однiею лижею за iншу i не витягнеться на весь зрiст у пiдступному снiгу, – через сто ярдiв геть знесилiе; той, хто за весь день жодного разу не трапить пiд ноги собакам, може з чистим сумлiнням i цiлком зрозумiлою гордiстю залiзати у спальний мiшок; а тому, хто пройде двадцять снiв по Довгiй стежинi, можуть заздрити боги.

Вечорiло, i мандрiвники, скутi шанобливим острахом перед Бiлою тишею, торували собi шлях. У природи е багато способiв переконати нас у тому, що ми смертнi: безнастаннi припливи i вiдпливи, лютi шторми, жахи землетрусу, гуркiт небесноi артилерii. Та серед цих явищ найбiльше гнiтить i жахае незворушний спокiй Бiлоi тишi, коли довкола все завмирае, яскраве небо горить мiдяним блиском, навiть тихий шепiт звучить як блюзнiрство, i сторопiла людина лякаеться власного голосу. Самотня крихта життя, що повзе по примарнiй пустелi мертвого свiту, вона з острахом думае про свою зухвалiсть, усвiдомлюючи, що ii життя – це життя хробака, не бiльше. У неi мимоволi з’являються дивнi думки, таiна всього сущого шукае втiлення. І людиною оволодiвае страх перед смертю, перед Богом, перед всесвiтом, i надiя на воскресiння та життя, i жага безсмертя – безсиле прагнення ув’язненого ества; i тодi людина лишаеться наодинцi з Богом.

День минув. Вони вийшли до мiсця, де гирло рiчки звертало вбiк, i Мейсон погнав свою запряжку через низький мис, аби зрiзати кут. Але собаки не могли подолати крутий пiдйом. Рут i Мейлмют Кiд знов i знов штовхали нарти вперед, та марно. Ще одне вiдчайдушне зусилля; нещаснi тварини, ослаблi вiд голоду, напружили останнi сили. Вище… вище… i нарти виринули на берег. Але ватажок потягнув запряжку вправо, i нарти наiхали на лижi Мейсона. Наслiдки були вельми сумнi: Мейсона збило з нiг, один iз собак упав, заплутавшись в упряжi, i нарти зiсковзнули вниз, тягнучи за собою собак.

Лясь! Лясь!.. Нагай безжально свистiв над собаками, i найбiльше постраждав винуватець подii.

– Годi, Мейсоне, – втрутився Мейлмют Кiд. – Вiн, бiдолаха, i так ледь живий. Зачекай, краще припряжемо моiх.

Мейсон спокiйно чекав, поки той договорить; а потiм довгий нагай знову обвився навколо тiла собаки. Кармен – а то була саме вона – з жалiбним скавчанням зiщулилася в снiгу, потiм перевернулася на бiк.

Це була тяжка мить, прикра подiя в дорозi: здихае собака, двое товаришiв сваряться. Рут благально дивилася то на одного, то на iншого з чоловiкiв. Але Мейлмют Кiд опанував себе, хоча в його поглядi був глибокий докiр, i, схилившись до собаки, перерiзав шворки. Нiхто не мовив нi слова. Запряжки зв’язали разом, пiдйом був подоланий, нарти знов рушили вперед, а ледь жива Кармен пленталася позаду. Поки вона може йти, ii не пристрелять, i в неi лишаеться останнiй шанс на життя – дiйти до привалу, де люди можуть убити лося.

Шкодуючи про свiй вчинок, але з гордощiв не зiзнаючись у цьому, Мейсон пробирався вперед першим i не пiдозрював, яка загроза нависла над ним. Вони торували собi шлях через густий чагарник у долинi. За п’ятдесят футiв од них височiла могутня сосна. Вона стояла тут багато десятилiть, i довгi роки доля судила iй такий кiнець – а може, i Мейсону також.

Вiн зупинився, щоб затягнути ослаблий ремiнь на мокасинi. Нарти стали, i собаки мовчки лягли на снiг. Панувала моторошна тиша; у морозному лiсi не було чути нi звуку, холод i безмовнiсть вiдкритого простору заморозили серце природи i скували ii тремтливi вуста. Раптом у повiтрi пролунало зiтхання – вони навiть не почули, а радше вiдчули його, як провiсник руху серед непорушноi пустки. А потiм величезне дерево, схилене пiд тягарем рокiв i снiгу, виконало свою останню роль у трагедii життя. Мейсон почув загрозливий трiск i рвонувся убiк, та щойно вiн випростався, дерево вдарило його по плечу.

Раптова небезпека, нагла смерть – як часто Мейлмют Кiд дивився iм у лице! Голки на вiтах iще тремтiли, коли вiн оддав наказ жiнцi й сам кинувся на помiч. Індiанка мало знепритомнiла i не стала марно голосити, як зробила б чи не кожна з ii бiлих сестер. За наказом Мейлмюта Кiда вона всiм тiлом налягла на жердину, що слугувала замiсть важеля, полегшуючи тягар i прислухаючись до стогонiв чоловiка, а Мейлмют Кiд рубав дерево сокирою. Криця весело дзвенiла, вгризаючись у замерзлий стовбур, i кожний удар супроводжувався знеможеним голосним видихом Кiда.

Нарештi вiн поклав на снiг жалюгiднi рештки того, що колись було людиною. Але ще страшнiшою, нiж мука його товариша, була нiма скорбота на обличчi жiнки та ii погляд, сповнений i надii, i безнадiйноi туги. Говорили вони небагато: на Пiвночi скоро пiзнають безцiнь слiв i дорогоцiннiсть вчинкiв. При температурi шiстдесят п’ять градусiв нижче нуля людина не може пролежати на снiгу бiльше кiлькох хвилин i лишитися живою. Тому вони зрiзали з нарт ременi, загорнули нещасного у хутро i поклали на пiдстилку з гiлок. Перед ним розпалили вогнище, складене з гiлля того ж самого дерева, що було причиною нещастя. Згори натягнули примiтивну завiсу – шматок полотна, що затримував тепло i вiдкидав його вниз, – хитрiсть, вiдома всiм, хто вивчае фiзику в природi.

Люди, яким доводилося дiлити ложе зi смертю, впiзнають ii поклик. Мейсон був страшно скалiчений. Це виявилося вже при побiжному оглядi. Його права рука, нога i хребет були зламанi, тiло вiд попереку паралiзоване; внутрiшнi органи, мабуть, теж зазнали тяжких ушкоджень. Лише поодинокi стогони свiдчили про те, що вiн живий.

Жодноi надii; тут уже нiчого не вдiеш. Безжальна нiч тяглася поволi – Рут пережила ii зi стоiчним вiдчаем, властивим ii племенi, а на бронзовому обличчi Мейлмюта Кiда пролягло кiлька нових зморщок. Власне, Мейсон страждав менше вiд усiх, бо вiн був далеко, у Схiдному Теннессi, у Великих Туманних Горах, i знову переживав свое дитинство. І глибокий розпач бринiв у мелодii давно забутого пiвденного мiста, коли вiн марив про купання у ставку, про полювання на енота i вилазки за кавунами. Для Рут це була чужа мова, але Кiд усе розумiв i вiдчував – так гостро, як тiльки може вiдчувати людина, на довгi роки вiдiрвана вiд усього, що зветься цивiлiзацiею.

Вранцi Мейсон прийшов до тями, i Мейлмют Кiд посунувся ближче до нього, намагаючись уловити ледь чутний шепiт:

– Пам’ятаеш, як ми зустрiлися на Тананi? У наступний кригохiд буде чотири роки. Тодi я не дуже любив ii. Просто вона була гарненька, i я подумав: а чом би й не розважитися трохи? Але ж ти знаеш, потiм я тiльки й думав, що про неi. Вона була доброю дружиною, – завжди поруч. І в нашому ремеслi, сам знаеш, iй нема рiвних. Пам’ятаеш, як вона перепливла бистрину Лосиний Рiг, аби зняти нас iз тобою зi скель, та ще й пiд пострiлами, – кулi так i перiщили по водi… А той голод у Нуклукайто? А як вона бiгла по льоду, щоб принести нам звiстку? Так, вона була доброю дружиною, – кращою, нiж та, iнша… Ти не знав, що я був одружений? Я ж не казав тобi? Так, спробував було одружитися – там, у Штатах. Ось чому я тут. А ми ж разом росли… Поiхав, аби дати iй привiд до розлучення. Тепер вона його матиме.

Але з Рут усе було по-iншому. Я думав, скiнчимо тут усi справи i наступного року поiдемо звiдси, – я i вона… а тепер уже пiзно. Ти ii не вiдправляй до ii племенi, Кiде. Це буде з бiса тяжко для жiнки, – повернутись туди. Тiльки подумай – чотири роки iсти з нами шинку, боби, борошно й сушенi фрукти, а потiм – знов рибу та оленяче м’ясо! Не можна iй повертатися – вона вже звикла жити по-нашому, спiзнала кращого життя. Подбай про неi, Кiде. А може, ти… та нi, ти завжди остерiгався жiнок… ти ж менi так i не сказав, чого приiхав сюди. Будь добрим до неi, скорiше вiдправ ii у Штати. Та якщо захоче, нехай повернеться… може, колись вона скучить за рiдним домом.

А малий… вiн iще тiснiше пов’язав нас, Кiде. Я так хочу думати, що це буде хлопчик. Тiльки подумай! Плоть вiд плотi моеi, Кiде. Йому не можна тут лишатись. А якщо дiвчинка… та нi, цього не може бути. Продай моi шкури; за них дадуть тисяч п’ять, i ще стiльки ж на моему рахунку в Компанii. Владнай моi справи разом зi своiми. Думаю, наша заявка себе виправдае. Допоможи йому отримати гарну освiту… i ще, Кiде, – це найголовнiше, – не дозволяй йому вертатися сюди. Ця краiна не для бiлих людей.

Менi гаплик, друже. У кращому разi – три днi, може, чотири. Ви мусите йти далi. Мусите! Пам’ятай, це моя дружина, мiй син… Господи! Якби ж то був хлопчик! Вам не можна лишатися зi мною. Це моя остання воля – йдiть!

– Дай менi три днi, – благально мовив Мейлмют Кiд. – Може, тобi стане краще; хтозна, що воно буде.

– Нi.

– Тiльки три днi.

– Ідiть!

– Два днi.

– Це моя дружина i мiй син, Кiде. Не проси мене.

– Один день.

– Нi, нi! Я наказую…

– Тiльки один день. Із iжею ми щось придумаемо; може, я пiдстрелю лося.

– Нi!.. Ну, гаразд. Один день – i нi хвилини бiльше. І ще, Кiде… не залишай мене вмирати самого. Один пострiл, – просто натиснути на курок. Зрозумiв? Подумай про це… Подумай! Плоть вiд плотi моеi, а я нiколи його не побачу…

Скажи Рут, нехай прийде. Я хочу попрощатися з нею, сказати, щоб вона дбала про сина i не чекала, поки я помру. А то вона ще вiдмовиться йти з тобою. Прощавай, друже… прощавай. Кiде! Слухай… треба копати вище, на схилi. Я там щоразу добував центiв на сорок… І ще, Кiде…

Той схилився нижче, аби розiбрати останнi слова – сповiдь помираючого, що позбувся своеi гординi.

– Пробач менi… ти знаеш, за що… за Кармен.

Залишивши жiнку тихо плакати бiля чоловiка, Мейлмют Кiд одягнув парку i лижi, взяв рушницю i подався до лiсу. Вiн не був новачком у борнi проти лютоi Пiвночi, та ще нiколи перед ним не стояло таке важке завдання. Якщо дивитися тверезо, це був простий розрахунок: три життя проти одного – приреченого. Але вiн вагався. П’ять рокiв плiч-о-плiч, на рiчках i стежинах, на стоянках, у копальнях, перед лицем смертi на полюваннi, у повiнь, у голод, – ось що пов’язувало iх iз Мейсоном. Ця дружба була такою мiцною, що вiн iнодi несвiдомо ревнував до Рут, – iз першого дня, коли вона стала мiж ними. А тепер вiн мусить власноруч розiрвати цей зв’язок.

Вiн молив Бога, щоб назустрiч трапився лось, хоча б один лось, – але, здавалося, вся звiрина покинула цю землю, i пiзно ввечерi вiн, знесилений, приплентався до стоянки з порожнiми руками та важким серцем. Собачий гавкiт i вiдчайдушнi крики Рут змусили його поспiшити.

Пiдбiгши до мiсця, вiн побачив, що жiнка борониться сокирою вiд оскаженiлоi зграi. Собаки порушили залiзний закон хазяiв i накинулися на iжу. Перехопивши рушницю за ствол, Кiд кинувся на помiч, i давня гра природного вiдбору постала у всiй своiй первiснiй жорстокостi. Рушниця й сокира здiймалися й опускалися, то влучаючи в цiль, то мимо, розмiрено та безнастанно; волохатi тiла кидалися туди й сюди, очi в собак палали, з пащек капала слина. Людина i звiр стялись у лютiй сутичцi за першiсть. Потiм побитi собаки вiдповзли вiд вогнища, зализуючи рани i жалiбно скiмлячи до далеких зiрок.

Весь запас сушених лососiв був знищений, i на двiстi миль шляху лишалося не бiльше п’яти фунтiв борошна. Рут повернулася до чоловiка, а Мейлмют Кiд обiдрав i розрубав на шматки ще тепле тiло одного з собак, череп якого був проламаний сокирою. Кожний шматок вiн надiйно сховав, а шкуру i нутрощi кинув недавнiм товаришам убитого собаки.

Ранок принiс новi клопоти. Собаки гризлися. Жертвою зграi стала Кармен, що досi чiплялася за свое вбоге життя. Не допомогла i покара – собаки вищали й звивалися пiд ударами нагая, та розбiглися лише тодi, коли вiд здобичi не лишилося нiчого – нi кiсток, нi шкури.

Мейлмют Кiд працював, прислухаючись до марення Мейсона, який знов повернувся у Теннессi й виголошував довгi безладнi промови, звертаючись до своiх колишнiх парафiян.

Поблизу росли сосни, i це полегшило справу. Рут дивилася, як Мейлмют Кiд ладнае схованку, подiбну до тоi, що влаштовують мисливцi, аби вберегти м’ясо вiд росомах та собак. Вiн прихилив верхiвки двох молодих сосон одна до одноi i, нагнувши iх майже до самоi землi, зв’язав ременями з оленячоi шкiри. Потiм приборкав собак ударами нагая, запрiг iх у нарти i поклав туди все, окрiм шкур, у якi був закутаний Мейсон. Вiн обв’язав тiло помираючого ременями i прикрiпив iхнi кiнцi до верхiвок сосон. Один удар ножа розрубае ременi, i тiло злетить у повiтря.

Рут покiрно вислухала останню волю чоловiка. Бiдолашна жiнка була привчена до покори. Ще дiвчинкою вона, як i всi ii одноплемiнницi, звикла схилятися перед чоловiками – володарями усього живого – i знала, що жiнцi личить бути слухняною. Кiд дозволив iй на мить виявити свое горе i востанне поцiлувати чоловiка – ii народ не знае такого звичаю, – а потiм вiдвiв ii до переднiх нарт i допомiг надягти лижi. Наче слiпа, вона машинально взяла жердину й нагай i, поганяючи собак, рушила в путь. А Кiд повернувся до Мейсона, що вже був без пам’ятi. І пiсля того, як Рут зникла з виду, вiн iще довго сидiв бiля вогню, вимолюючи в неба скороi смертi для свого товариша.

Тяжко лишитися наодинцi з болiсними думками серед Бiлоi тишi. Мовчання темряви милосердне, воно нiби огортае людину невидимим покривом спiвчуття; але сяюча Бiла тиша, прозора крижана пустка пiд сталевим небом, не знае жалю.

Минула година, двi – Мейсон не вмирав. Опiвднi сонце, не визираючи з-за обрiю, осяяло небо тьмяним вiдблиском свого вогню; та скоро вiн згас. Мейлмют Кiд встав, повiльно пiдiйшов до товариша i озирнувся довкола. Бiла тиша немовби глумилася з нього, i йому стало страшно. Рiзко прозвучав одинокий пострiл. Мейсон злетiв у свою пiднебесну гробницю, а Мейлмют Кiд, поганяючи собак, помчав у снiжну далечiнь.




To Build a Fire


Day had broken cold and gray, exceedingly cold and gray, when the man turned aside from the main Yukon trail and climbed the high earth-bank, where a dim and little-traveled trail led eastward through the fat spruce timberland. It was a steep bank, and he paused for breath at the top, excusing the act to himself by looking at his watch. It was nine o’clock. There was no sun nor hint of sun, though there was not a cloud in the sky. It was a clear day, and yet there seemed an intangible pall over the face of things, a subtle gloom that made the day dark, and that was 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 had seen the sun, and he knew that a few more days must pass before that cheerful orb, due south, would just peep above the sky line and dip immediately from view.

The man flung a look back along the way he had come. The Yukon lay a mile wide and hidden under three feet of ice. On top of this ice were as many feet of snow. It was all pure white, rolling in gentle undulations where the ice jams of the freeze-up had formed. North and south, as far as his eye could see, it was unbroken white, save for a dark hairline that curved and twisted from around the spruce-covered island to the south, and that curved and twisted away into the north, where it disappeared behind another spruce-covered island. This dark hairline was the trail—the main trail—that led south five hundred miles to the Chilcoot Pass, Dyea, and salt water; and that led north seventy miles to Dawson, and still on to the north a thousand miles to Nulato, and finally to St. Michael, on Bering Sea, a thousand miles 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 the strangeness and weirdness of it all—made no impression on the man. It was not because he was long used to it. He was a newcomer in the land, a chechaquo, and this was his first winter. The trouble with him was that he was without imagination. He was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things, and not in the significances. Fifty degrees below zero meant eighty-odd degrees of frost. Such fact impressed him as being cold and uncomfortable, and that was all. It did not lead him to meditate upon his frailty as a creature of temperature, and upon man’s frailty in general, able only to live within certain narrow limits of heat and cold; and from there on it did not lead him to the conjectural field of immortality and man’s place in the universe. Fifty degrees below zero stood for a bite of frost that hurt and that must be guarded against by the use of mittens, ear flaps, warm moccasins, and thick socks. Fifty degrees below zero was to him just precisely fifty degrees below zero. That there should be anything more to it than that was a thought that never entered his head.

As he turned to go on, he spat speculatively. There was a sharp, explosive crackle that startled him. He spat again. And again, in the air, before it could fall to the snow, the spittle crackled. He knew that at fifty below spittle crackled on the snow, but this spittle had crackled in the air. Undoubtedly it was colder than fifty below—how much colder he did not know. But the temperature did not matter. He was bound for the old claim on the left fork of Henderson Creek, where the boys were already. They had come over across the divide from the Indian Creek country, while he had come the roundabout way to take a look at the possibilities of getting out logs in the spring from the islands in the Yukon. He would be in to camp by six o’clock; a bit after dark, it was true, but the boys would be there, a fire would be going, and a hot supper would be ready. As for lunch, he pressed his hand against the protruding bundle under his jacket. It was also under his shirt, wrapped up in a handkerchief and lying against the naked skin. It was the only way to keep the biscuits from freezing. He smiled agreeably to himself as he thought of those biscuits, each cut open and sopped in bacon grease, and each enclosing a generous slice of fried bacon.

He plunged in among the big spruce trees. The trail was faint. A foot of snow had fallen since the last sled had passed over, and he was glad he was without a sled, traveling light. In fact, he carried nothing but the lunch wrapped in the handkerchief. He was surprised, however, at the cold. It certainly was cold, he concluded, as he rubbed his numb nose and cheekbones with his mittened hand. He was a warm-whiskered man, but the hair on his face did not protect the high cheekbones and the eager nose that thrust itself aggressively into the frosty air.

At the man’s heels trotted a dog, a big native husky, the proper wolf dog, gray-coated and without any visible or temperamental difference from its brother, the wild wolf. The animal was depressed by the tremendous cold. It knew that it was no time for traveling. Its instinct told it a truer tale than was told to the man by the man’s judgment. In reality, it was not merely colder than fifty below zero; it was colder than sixty below, than seventy below. It was seventy-five below zero. Since the freezing point is thirty-two above zero, it meant that one hundred and seven degrees of frost obtained. The dog did not know anything about thermometers. Possibly in its brain there was no sharp consciousness of a condition of very cold such as was in the man’s brain. But the brute had its instinct. It experienced a vague but menacing apprehension that subdued it and made it slink along at the man’s heels, and that made it question eagerly every unwonted movement of the man as if expecting him to go into camp or to seek shelter somewhere and build a fire. The dog had learned fire, and it wanted fire, or else to burrow under the snow and cuddle its warmth away from the air.

The frozen moisture of its breathing had settled on its fur in a fine powder of frost, and especially were its jowls, muzzle, and eyelashes whitened by its crystaled breath. The man’s red beard and mustache were likewise frosted, but more solidly, the deposit taking the form of ice and increasing with every warm, moist breath he exhaled. Also, the man was chewing tobacco, and the muzzle of ice held his lips so rigidly that he was unable to clear his chin when he expelled the juice. The result was that a crystal beard of the color and solidity of amber was increasing its length on his chin. If he fell down it would shatter itself, like glass, into brittle fragments. But he did not mind the appendage. It was the penalty all tobacco chewers paid in that country, and he had been out before in two cold snaps. They had not been so cold as this, he knew, but by the spirit thermometer at Sixty Mile he knew they had been registered at fifty below and at fifty-five.





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