Love of Life

by Jack London

"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 thetwo men staggered among the rough-strewn rocks. They were tiredand weak, and their faces had the drawn expression of patiencewhich comes of hardship long endured. They were heavily burdenedwith blanket packs which were strapped to their shoulders. Head-straps, passing across the forehead, helped support these packs.Each man carried a rifle. They walked in a stooped posture, theshoulders well forward, the head still farther forward, the eyesbent upon the ground."I wish we had just about two of them cartridges that's layin' inthat cache of ourn," said the second man.His voice was utterly and drearily expressionless. He spokewithout enthusiasm; and the first man, limping into the milkystream that foamed over the rocks, vouchsafed no reply.The other man followed at his heels. They did not remove theirfoot-gear, though the water was icy cold - so cold that theirankles ached and their feet went numb. In places the water dashedagainst their knees, and both men staggered for footing.The man who followed slipped on a smooth boulder, nearly fell, butrecovered himself with a violent effort, at the same time utteringa sharp exclamation of pain. He seemed faint and dizzy and put outhis free hand while he reeled, as though seeking support againstthe air. When he had steadied himself he stepped forward, butreeled again and nearly fell. Then he stood still and looked atthe other man, who had never turned his head.The man stood still for fully a minute, as though debating withhimself. 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 asever, his eyes were like the eyes of a wounded deer.The other man limped up the farther bank and continued straight onwithout looking back. The man in the stream watched him. His lipstrembled a little, so that the rough thatch of brown hair whichcovered them was visibly agitated. His tongue even strayed out tomoisten them."Bill!" he cried out.It was the pleading cry of a strong man in distress, but Bill'shead did not turn. The man watched him go, limping grotesquely andlurching forward with stammering gait up the slow slope toward thesoft sky-line of the low-lying hill. He watched him go till hepassed over the crest and disappeared. Then he turned his gaze andslowly took in the circle of the world that remained to him nowthat Bill was gone.Near the horizon the sun was smouldering dimly, almost obscured byformless mists and vapors, which gave an impression of mass anddensity without outline or tangibility. The man pulled out hiswatch, the while resting his weight on one leg. It was fouro'clock, and as the season was near the last of July or first ofAugust, - he did not know the precise date within a week or two, -he knew that the sun roughly marked the northwest. He looked tothe south and knew that somewhere beyond those bleak hills lay theGreat Bear Lake; also, he knew that in that direction the ArcticCircle cut its forbidding way across the Canadian Barrens. Thisstream in which he stood was a feeder to the Coppermine River,which in turn flowed north and emptied into Coronation Gulf and theArctic Ocean. He had never been there, but he had seen it, once,on a Hudson Bay Company chart.Again his gaze completed the circle of the world about him. It wasnot a heartening spectacle. Everywhere was soft sky-line. Thehills were all low-lying. There were no trees, no shrubs, nograsses - naught but a tremendous and terrible desolation that sentfear swiftly dawning into his eyes."Bill!" he whispered, once and twice; "Bill!"He cowered in the midst of the milky water, as though the vastnesswere pressing in upon him with overwhelming force, brutallycrushing him with its complacent awfulness. He began to shake aswith an ague-fit, till the gun fell from his hand with a splash.This served to rouse him. He fought with his fear and pulledhimself together, groping in the water and recovering the weapon.He hitched his pack farther over on his left shoulder, so as totake a portion of its weight from off the injured ankle. Then heproceeded, slowly and carefully, wincing with pain, to the bank.He did not stop. With a desperation that was madness, unmindful ofthe pain, he hurried up the slope to the crest of the hill overwhich his comrade had disappeared - more grotesque and comical byfar than that limping, jerking comrade. But at the crest he saw ashallow valley, empty of life. He fought with his fear again,overcame it, hitched the pack still farther over on his leftshoulder, and lurched on down the slope.The bottom of the valley was soggy with water, which the thick mossheld, spongelike, close to the surface. This water squirted outfrom under his feet at every step, and each time he lifted a footthe action culminated in a sucking sound as the wet mossreluctantly released its grip. He picked his way from muskeg tomuskeg, and followed the other man's footsteps along and across therocky ledges which thrust like islets through the sea of moss.Though alone, he was not lost. Farther on he knew he would come towhere dead spruce and fir, very small and weazened, bordered theshore of a little lake, the TITCHIN-NICHILIE, in the tongue of thecountry, the "land of little sticks." And into that lake flowed asmall stream, the water of which was not milky. There was rush-grass on that stream - this he remembered well - but no timber, andhe would follow it till its first trickle ceased at a divide. Hewould cross this divide to the first trickle of another stream,flowing to the west, which he would follow until it emptied intothe river Dease, and here he would find a cache under an upturnedcanoe and piled over with many rocks. And in this cache would beammunition for his empty gun, fish-hooks and lines, a small net -all the utilities for the killing and snaring of food. Also, hewould find flour, - not much, - a piece of bacon, and some beans.Bill would be waiting for him there, and they would paddle awaysouth down the Dease to the Great Bear Lake. And south across thelake they would go, ever south, till they gained the Mackenzie.And south, still south, they would go, while the winter racedvainly after them, and the ice formed in the eddies, and the daysgrew chill and crisp, south to some warm Hudson 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 hardas he strove with his body, he strove equally hard with his mind,trying to think that Bill had not deserted him, that Bill wouldsurely wait for him at the cache. He was compelled to think thisthought, or else there would not be any use to strive, and he wouldhave lain down and died. And as the dim ball of the sun sankslowly into the northwest he covered every inch - and many times -of his and Bill's flight south before the downcoming winter. Andhe conned the grub of the cache and the grub of the Hudson BayCompany 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. Oftenhe stooped and picked pale muskeg berries, put them into his mouth,and chewed and swallowed them. A muskeg berry is a bit of seedenclosed in a bit of water. In the mouth the water melts away andthe seed chews sharp and bitter. The man knew there was nonourishment in the berries, but he chewed them patiently with ahope greater than knowledge and defying experience.At nine o'clock he stubbed his toe on a rocky ledge, and from sheerweariness and weakness staggered and fell. He lay for some time,without movement, on his side. Then he slipped out of the pack-straps and clumsily dragged himself into a sitting posture. It wasnot yet dark, and in the lingering twilight he groped about amongthe rocks for shreds of dry moss. When he had gathered a heap hebuilt a fire, - a smouldering, smudgy fire, - and put a tin pot ofwater on to boil.He unwrapped his pack and the first thing he did was to count hismatches. There were sixty-seven. He counted them three times tomake sure. He divided them into several portions, wrapping them inoil paper, disposing of one bunch in his empty tobacco pouch, ofanother bunch in the inside band of his battered hat, of a thirdbunch under his shirt on the chest. This accomplished, a paniccame upon him, and he unwrapped them all and counted them again.There were still sixty-seven.He dried his wet foot-gear by the fire. The moccasins were insoggy shreds. The blanket socks were worn through in places, andhis feet were raw and bleeding. His ankle was throbbing, and hegave 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 theankle tightly. He tore other strips and bound them about his feetto serve for both moccasins and socks. Then he drank the pot ofwater, steaming hot, wound his watch, and crawled between hisblankets.He slept like a dead man. The brief darkness around midnight cameand went. The sun arose in the northeast - at least the day dawnedin that quarter, for the sun was hidden by gray clouds.At six o'clock he awoke, quietly lying on his back. He gazedstraight up into the gray sky and knew that he was hungry. As herolled over on his elbow he was startled by a loud snort, and saw abull caribou regarding him with alert curiosity. The animal wasnot mere than fifty feet away, and instantly into the man's mindleaped the vision and the savor of a caribou steak sizzling andfrying over a fire. Mechanically he reached for the empty gun,drew a bead, and pulled the trigger. The bull snorted and leapedaway, his hoofs rattling and clattering as he fled across theledges.The man cursed and flung the empty gun from him. He groaned aloudas he started to drag himself to his feet. It was a slow andarduous task.His joints were like rusty hinges. They worked harshly in theirsockets, with much friction, and each bending or unbending wasaccomplished only through a sheer exertion of will. When hefinally gained his feet, another minute or so was consumed instraightening up, so that he could stand erect as a man shouldstand.He crawled up a small knoll and surveyed the prospect. There wereno trees, no bushes, nothing but a gray sea of moss scarcelydiversified by gray rocks, gray lakelets, and gray streamlets. Thesky was gray. There was no sun nor hint of sun. He had no idea ofnorth, and he had forgotten the way he had come to this spot thenight before. But he was not lost. He knew that. Soon he wouldcome to the land of the little sticks. He felt that it lay off tothe left somewhere, not far - possibly just over the next low hill.He went back to put his pack into shape for travelling. He assuredhimself of the existence of his three separate parcels of matches,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 itunder his two hands. He knew that it weighed fifteen pounds, - asmuch as all the rest of the pack, - and it worried him. He finallyset it to one side and proceeded to roll the pack. He paused togaze at the squat moose-hide sack. He picked it up hastily with adefiant glance about him, as though the desolation were trying torob him of it; and when he rose to his feet to stagger on into theday, it was included in the pack on his back.He bore away to the left, stopping now and again to eat muskegberries. His ankle had stiffened, his limp was more pronounced,but the pain of it was as nothing compared with the pain of hisstomach. The hunger pangs were sharp. They gnawed and gnaweduntil he could not keep his mind steady on the course he mustpursue to gain the land of little sticks. The muskeg berries didnot allay this gnawing, while they made his tongue and the roof ofhis mouth sore with their irritating bite.He came upon a valley where rock ptarmigan rose on whirring wingsfrom the ledges and muskegs. Ker - ker - ker was the cry theymade. He threw stones at them, but could not hit them. He placedhis 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 atrail of blood; but the hurt was lost in the hurt of his hunger.He squirmed over the wet moss, saturating his clothes and chillinghis body; but he was not aware of it, so great was his fever forfood. And always the ptarmigan rose, whirring, before him, tilltheir ker - ker - ker became a mock to him, and he cursed them andcried aloud at them with their own cry.Once he crawled upon one that must have been asleep. He did notsee it till it shot up in his face from its rocky nook. He made aclutch as startled as was the rise of the ptarmigan, and thereremained in his hand three tail-feathers. As he watched its flighthe hated it, as though it had done him some terrible wrong. Thenhe returned and shouldered his pack.As the day wore along he came into valleys or swales where game wasmore plentiful. A band of caribou passed by, twenty and oddanimals, tantalizingly within rifle range. He felt a wild desireto run after them, a certitude that he could run them down. Ablack fox came toward him, carrying a ptarmigan in his mouth. Theman shouted. It was a fearful cry, but the fox, leaping away infright, did not drop the ptarmigan.Late in the afternoon he followed a stream, milky with lime, whichran through sparse patches of rush-grass. Grasping these rushesfirmly near the root, he pulled up what resembled a young onion-sprout no larger than a shingle-nail. It was tender, and his teethsank into it with a crunch that promised deliciously of food. Butits fibers were tough. It was composed of stringy filamentssaturated with water, like the berries, and devoid of nourishment.He threw off his pack and went into the rush-grass on hands andknees, 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 togain the land of little sticks as by his hunger. He searchedlittle ponds for frogs and dug up the earth with his nails forworms, though he knew in spite that neither frogs nor worms existedso far north.He looked into every pool of water vainly, until, as the longtwilight came on, he discovered a solitary fish, the size of aminnow, 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 stirredup the milky mud at the bottom. In his excitement he fell in,wetting himself to the waist. Then the water was too muddy toadmit of his seeing the fish, and he was compelled to wait untilthe sediment had settled.The pursuit was renewed, till the water was again muddied. But hecould not wait. He unstrapped the tin bucket and began to bale thepool. He baled wildly at first, splashing himself and flinging thewater so short a distance that it ran back into the pool. Heworked more carefully, striving to be cool, though his heart waspounding against his chest and his hands were trembling. At theend of half an hour the pool was nearly dry. Not a cupful of waterremained. And there was no fish. He found a hidden crevice amongthe stones through which it had escaped to the adjoining and largerpool - a pool which he could not empty in a night and a day. Hadhe known of the crevice, he could have closed it with a rock at thebeginning 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 thepitiless desolation that ringed him around; and for a long timeafter 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 nightbefore. The last thing he did was to see that his matches were dryand to wind his watch. The blankets were wet and clammy. Hisankle pulsed with pain. But he knew only that he was hungry, andthrough his restless sleep he dreamed of feasts and banquets and offood served and spread in all imaginable ways.He awoke chilled and sick. There was no sun. The gray of earthand sky had become deeper, more profound. A raw wind was blowing,and the first flurries of snow were whitening the hilltops. Theair about him thickened and grew white while he made a fire andboiled more water. It was wet snow, half rain, and the flakes werelarge and soggy. At first they melted as soon as they came incontact 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 littlesticks, nor with Bill and the cache under the upturned canoe by theriver 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 thatcourse led him through the swale bottoms. He felt his way throughthe wet snow to the watery muskeg berries, and went by feel as hepulled up the rush-grass by the roots. But it was tasteless stuffand did not satisfy. He found a weed that tasted sour and he ateall he could find of it, which was not much, for it was a creepinggrowth, easily hidden under the several inches of snow.He had no fire that night, nor hot water, and crawled under hisblanket to sleep the broken hunger-sleep. The snow turned into acold rain. He awakened many times to feel it falling on hisupturned face. Day came - a gray day and no sun. It had ceasedraining. The keenness of his hunger had departed. Sensibility, asfar as concerned the yearning for food, had been exhausted. Therewas a dull, heavy ache in his stomach, but it did not bother him somuch. He was more rational, and once more he was chieflyinterested in the land of little sticks and the cache by the riverDease.He ripped the remnant of one of his blankets into strips and boundhis bleeding feet. Also, he recinched the injured ankle andprepared himself for a day of travel. When he came to his pack, hepaused long over the squat moose-hide sack, but in the end it wentwith him.The snow had melted under the rain, and only the hilltops showedwhite. The sun came out, and he succeeded in locating the pointsof the compass, though he knew now that he was lost. Perhaps, inhis previous days' wanderings, he had edged away too far to theleft. He now bore off to the right to counteract the possibledeviation from his true course.Though the hunger pangs were no longer so exquisite, he realizedthat he was weak. He was compelled to pause for frequent rests,when he attacked the muskeg berries and rush-grass patches. Histongue felt dry and large, as though covered with a fine hairygrowth, and it tasted bitter in his mouth. His heart gave him agreat deal of trouble. When he had travelled a few minutes itwould begin a remorseless thump, thump, thump, and then leap up andaway in a painful flutter of beats that choked him and made him gofaint and dizzy.In the middle of the day he found two minnows in a large pool. Itwas impossible to bale it, but he was calmer now and managed tocatch them in his tin bucket. They were no longer than his littlefinger, but he was not particularly hungry. The dull ache in hisstomach had been growing duller and fainter. It seemed almost thathis stomach was dozing. He ate the fish raw, masticating withpainstaking care, for the eating was an act of pure reason. Whilehe had no desire to eat, he knew that he must eat to live.In the evening he caught three more minnows, eating two and savingthe third for breakfast. The sun had dried stray shreds of moss,and he was able to warm himself with hot water. He had not coveredmore than ten miles that day; and the next day, travelling wheneverhis heart permitted him, he covered no more than five miles. Buthis stomach did not give him the slightest uneasiness. It had goneto sleep. He was in a strange country, too, and the caribou weregrowing more plentiful, also the wolves. Often their yelps driftedacross the desolation, and once he saw three of them slinking awaybefore his path.Another night; and in the morning, being more rational, he untiedthe leather string that fastened the squat moose-hide sack. Fromits open mouth poured a yellow stream of coarse gold-dust andnuggets. He roughly divided the gold in halves, caching one halfon a prominent ledge, wrapped in a piece of blanket, and returningthe other half to the sack. He also began to use strips of the oneremaining blanket for his feet. He still clung to his gun, forthere were cartridges in that cache by the river Dease.This was a day of fog, and this day hunger awoke in him again. Hewas very weak and was afflicted with a giddiness which at timesblinded him. It was no uncommon thing now for him to stumble andfall; and stumbling once, he fell squarely into a ptarmigan nest.There were four newly hatched chicks, a day old - little specks ofpulsating life no more than a mouthful; and he ate them ravenously,thrusting them alive into his mouth and crunching them like egg-shells between his teeth. The mother ptarmigan beat about him withgreat outcry. He used his gun as a club with which to knock herover, but she dodged out of reach. He threw stones at her and withone 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 hoppedand bobbed clumsily along on his injured ankle, throwing stones andscreaming hoarsely at times; at other times hopping and bobbingsilently along, picking himself up grimly and patiently when hefell, or rubbing his eyes with his hand when the giddinessthreatened 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 hisown - he could see that. They must be Bill's. But he could notstop, for the mother ptarmigan was running on. He would catch herfirst, then he would return and investigate.He exhausted the mother ptarmigan; but he exhausted himself. Shelay panting on her side. He lay panting on his side, a dozen feetaway, unable to crawl to her. And as he recovered she recovered,fluttering out of reach as his hungry hand went out to her. Thechase was resumed. Night settled down and she escaped. Hestumbled from weakness and pitched head foremost on his face,cutting his cheek, his pack upon his back. He did not move for along while; then he rolled over on his side, wound his watch, andlay there until morning.Another day of fog. Half of his last blanket had gone into foot-wrappings. He failed to pick up Bill's trail. It did not matter.His hunger was driving him too compellingly - only - only hewondered if Bill, too, were lost. By midday the irk of his packbecame too oppressive. Again he divided the gold, this time merelyspilling half of it on the ground. In the afternoon he threw therest of it away, there remaining to him only the half-blanket, thetin bucket, and the rifle.An hallucination began to trouble him. He felt confident that onecartridge remained to him. It was in the chamber of the rifle andhe had overlooked it. On the other hand, he knew all the time thatthe chamber was empty. But the hallucination persisted. He foughtit off for hours, then threw his rifle open and was confronted withemptiness. The disappointment was as bitter as though he hadreally 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 heopened his rifle to unconvince himself. At times his mind wanderedfarther afield, and he plodded on, a mere automaton, strangeconceits and whimsicalities gnawing at his brain like worms. Butthese excursions out of the real were of brief duration, for everthe pangs of the hunger-bite called him back. He was jerked backabruptly once from such an excursion by a sight that caused himnearly to faint. He reeled and swayed, doddering like a drunkenman to keep from falling. Before him stood a horse. A horse! Hecould not believe his eyes. A thick mist was in them, intershotwith sparkling points of light. He rubbed his eyes savagely toclear 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 herealized. He lowered it and drew his hunting-knife from its beadedsheath at his hip. Before him was meat and life. He ran his thumbalong the edge of his knife. It was sharp. The point was sharp.He would fling himself upon the bear and kill it. But his heartbegan its warning thump, thump, thump. Then followed the wildupward leap and tattoo of flutters, the pressing as of an iron bandabout his forehead, the creeping of the dizziness into his brain.His desperate courage was evicted by a great surge of fear. In hisweakness, what if the animal attacked him? He drew himself up tohis most imposing stature, gripping the knife and staring hard atthe bear. The bear advanced clumsily a couple of steps, reared up,and gave vent to a tentative growl. If the man ran, he would runafter him; but the man did not run. He was animated now with thecourage of fear. He, too, growled, savagely, terribly, voicing thefear that is to life germane and that lies twisted about life'sdeepest roots.The bear edged away to one side, growling menacingly, himselfappalled by this mysterious creature that appeared upright andunafraid. But the man did not move. He stood like a statue tillthe danger was past, when he yielded to a fit of trembling and sankdown 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 hadexhausted the last particle of the endeavor in him that made towardsurviving. There were the wolves. Back and forth across thedesolation drifted their howls, weaving the very air into a fabricof menace that was so tangible that he found himself, arms in theair, pressing it back 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 hispath. But they sheered clear of him. They were not in sufficientnumbers, and besides they were hunting the caribou, which did notbattle, while this strange creature that walked erect might scratchand bite.In the late afternoon he came upon scattered bones where the wolveshad made a kill. The debris had been a caribou calf an hourbefore, squawking and running and very much alive. He contemplatedthe bones, clean-picked and polished, pink with the cell-life inthem which had not yet died. Could it possibly be that he might bethat ere the day was done! Such was life, eh? A vain and fleetingthing. It was only life that pained. There was no hurt in death.To die was to sleep. It meant cessation, rest. Then why was henot content to die?But he did not moralize long. He was squatting in the moss, a bonein his mouth, sucking at the shreds of life that still dyed itfaintly pink. The sweet meaty taste, thin and elusive almost as amemory, maddened him. He closed his jaws on the bones andcrunched. Sometimes it was the bone that broke, sometimes histeeth. Then he crushed the bones between rocks, pounded them to apulp, and swallowed them. He pounded his fingers, too, in hishaste, and yet found a moment in which to feel surprise at the factthat his fingers did not hurt much when caught under the descendingrock.Came frightful days of snow and rain. He did not know when he madecamp, when he broke camp. He travelled in the night as much as inthe day. He rested wherever he fell, crawled on whenever the dyinglife in him flickered up and burned less dimly. He, as a man, nolonger strove. It was the life in him, unwilling to die, thatdrove him on. He did not suffer. His nerves had become blunted,numb, while his mind was filled with weird visions and deliciousdreams.But ever he sucked and chewed on the crushed bones of the cariboucalf, the least remnants of which he had gathered up and carriedwith him. He crossed no more hills or divides, but automaticallyfollowed a large stream which flowed through a wide and shallowvalley. He did not see this stream nor this valley. He sawnothing save visions. Soul and body walked or crawled side byside, 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 thesquawking of caribou calves. He was aware of vague memories ofrain and wind and snow, but whether he had been beaten by the stormfor two days or two weeks he did not know.For some time he lay without movement, the genial sunshine pouringupon him and saturating his miserable body with its warmth. A fineday, he thought. Perhaps he could manage to locate himself. By apainful effort he rolled over on his side. Below him flowed a wideand sluggish river. Its unfamiliarity puzzled him. Slowly hefollowed it with his eyes, winding in wide sweeps among the bleak,bare hills, bleaker and barer and lower-lying than any hills he hadyet encountered. Slowly, deliberately, without excitement or morethan the most casual interest, he followed the course of thestrange stream toward the sky-line and saw it emptying into abright and shining sea. He was still unexcited. Most unusual, hethought, a vision or a mirage - more likely a vision, a trick ofhis disordered mind. He was confirmed in this by sight of a shiplying at anchor in the midst of the shining sea. He closed hiseyes for a while, then opened them. Strange how the visionpersisted! Yet not strange. He knew there were no seas or shipsin the heart of the barren lands, just as he had known there was nocartridge in the empty rifle.He heard a snuffle behind him - a half-choking gasp or cough. Veryslowly, because of his exceeding weakness and stiffness, he rolledover on his other side. He could see nothing near at hand, but hewaited patiently. Again came the snuffle and cough, and outlinedbetween two jagged rocks not a score of feet away he made out thegray head of a wolf. The sharp ears were not pricked so sharply ashe had seen them on other wolves; the eyes were bleared andbloodshot, the head seemed to droop limply and forlornly. Theanimal blinked continually in the sunshine. It seemed sick. As helooked it snuffled and coughed again.This, at least, was real, he thought, and turned on the other sideso that he might see the reality of the world which had been veiledfrom him before by the vision. But the sea still shone in thedistance and the ship was plainly discernible. Was it reality,after all? He closed his eyes for a long while and thought, andthen it came to him. He had been making north by east, away fromthe Dease Divide and into the Coppermine Valley. This wide andsluggish river was the Coppermine. That shining sea was the ArcticOcean. That ship was a whaler, strayed east, far east, from themouth of the Mackenzie, and it was lying at anchor in CoronationGulf. He remembered the Hudson Bay Company chart he had seen longago, and it was all clear and reasonable to him.He sat up and turned his attention to immediate affairs. He hadworn through the blanket-wrappings, and his feet were shapelesslumps of raw meat. His last blanket was gone. Rifle and knifewere both missing. He had lost his hat somewhere, with the bunchof matches in the band, but the matches against his chest were safeand dry inside the tobacco pouch and oil paper. He looked at hiswatch. It marked eleven o'clock and was still running. Evidentlyhe had kept it wound.He was calm and collected. Though extremely weak, he had nosensation of pain. He was not hungry. The thought of food was noteven pleasant to him, and whatever he did was done by his reasonalone. He ripped off his pants' legs to the knees and bound themabout his feet. Somehow he had succeeded in retaining the tinbucket. He would have some hot water before he began what heforesaw was to be a terrible journey to the ship.His movements were slow. He shook as with a palsy. When hestarted to collect dry moss, he found he could not rise to hisfeet. He tried again and again, then contented himself withcrawling about on hands and knees. Once he crawled near to thesick wolf. The animal dragged itself reluctantly out of his way,licking its chops with a tongue which seemed hardly to have thestrength to curl. The man noticed that the tongue was not thecustomary healthy red. It was a yellowish brown and seemed coatedwith a rough and half-dry mucus.After he had drunk a quart of hot water the man found he was ableto stand, and even to walk as well as a dying man might be supposedto walk. Every minute or so he was compelled to rest. His stepswere feeble and uncertain, just as the wolf's that trailed him werefeeble and uncertain; and that night, when the shining sea wasblotted out by blackness, he knew he was nearer to it by no morethan four miles.Throughout the night he heard the cough of the sick wolf, and nowand then the squawking of the caribou calves. There was life allaround him, but it was strong life, very much alive and well, andhe knew the sick wolf clung to the sick man's trail in the hopethat the man would die first. In the morning, on opening his eyes,he beheld it regarding him with a wistful and hungry stare. Itstood crouched, with tail between its legs, like a miserable andwoe-begone dog. It shivered in the chill morning wind, and grinneddispiritedly when the man spoke to it in a voice that achieved nomore than a hoarse whisper.The sun rose brightly, and all morning the man tottered and felltoward the ship on the shining sea. The weather was perfect. Itwas the brief Indian Summer of the high latitudes. It might last aweek. To-morrow or next day it might he 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 manthought it might be Bill, but he thought in a dull, uninterestedway. He had no curiosity. In fact, sensation and emotion had lefthim. He was no longer susceptible to pain. Stomach and nerves hadgone to sleep. Yet the life that was in him drove him on. He wasvery weary, but it refused to die. It was because it refused todie that he still ate muskeg berries and minnows, drank his hotwater, 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 thesoggy moss was marked by the foot-pads of many wolves. He saw asquat moose-hide sack, mate to his own, which had been torn bysharp teeth. He picked it up, though its weight was almost toomuch for his feeble fingers. Bill had carried it to the last. Ha!ha! He would have the laugh on Bill. He would survive and carryit to the ship in the shining sea. His mirth was hoarse andghastly, like a raven's croak, and the sick wolf joined him,howling lugubriously. The man ceased suddenly. How could he havethe laugh on Bill if that were Bill; if those bones, so pinky-whiteand clean, were Bill?He turned away. Well, Bill had deserted him; but he would not takethe 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, hejerked his head back as though he had been stung. He had caughtsight of his reflected face. So horrible was it that sensibilityawoke long enough to be shocked. There were three minnows in thepool, which was too large to drain; and after several ineffectualattempts to catch them in the tin bucket he forbore. He wasafraid, because of his great weakness, that he might fall in anddrown. It was for this reason that he did not trust himself to theriver astride one of the many drift-logs which lined its sand-spits.That day he decreased the distance between him and the ship bythree miles; the next day by two - for he was crawling now as Billhad crawled; and the end of the fifth day found the ship stillseven miles away and him unable to make even a mile a day. Stillthe Indian Summer held on, and he continued to crawl and faint,turn and turn about; and ever the sick wolf coughed and wheezed athis heels. His knees had become raw meat like his feet, and thoughhe padded them with the shirt from his back it was a red track heleft behind him on the moss and stones. Once, glancing back, hesaw the wolf licking hungrily his bleeding trail, and he sawsharply what his own end might be - unless - unless he could getthe wolf. Then began as grim a tragedy of existence as was everplayed - a sick man that crawled, a sick wolf that limped, twocreatures dragging their dying carcasses across the desolation andhunting each other's lives.Had it been a well wolf, it would not have mattered so much to theman; but the thought of going to feed the maw of that loathsome andall but dead thing was repugnant to him. He was finicky. His mindhad 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 itsweakness. It was ludicrous, but he was not amused. Nor was heeven afraid. He was too far gone for that. But his mind was forthe moment clear, and he lay and considered. The ship was no morethan four miles away. He could see it quite distinctly when herubbed the mists out of his eyes, and he could see the white sailof a small boat cutting the water of the shining sea. But he couldnever crawl those four miles. He knew that, and was very calm inthe knowledge. He knew that he could not crawl half a mile. Andyet he wanted to live. It was unreasonable that he should dieafter all he had undergone. Fate asked too much of him. And,dying, he declined to die. It was stark madness, perhaps, but inthe 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 thatlapped like a rising tide through all the wells of his being. Itwas very like a sea, this deadly languor, that rose and rose anddrowned his consciousness bit by bit. Sometimes he was all butsubmerged, swimming through oblivion with a faltering stroke; andagain, by some strange alchemy of soul, he would find another shredof will and strike out more strongly.Without movement he lay on his back, and he could hear, slowlydrawing near and nearer, the wheezing intake and output of the sickwolf's breath. It drew closer, ever closer, through an infinitudeof time, and he did not move. It was at his ear. The harsh drytongue grated like sandpaper against his cheek. His hands shot out- or at least he willed them to shoot out. The fingers were curvedlike talons, but they closed on empty air. Swiftness and certituderequire strength, and the man had not this strength.The patience of the wolf was terrible. The man's patience was noless terrible. For half a day he lay motionless, fighting offunconsciousness and waiting for the thing that was to feed upon himand upon which he wished to feed. Sometimes the languid sea roseover him and he dreamed long dreams; but ever through it all,waking and dreaming, he waited for the wheezing breath and theharsh caress of the tongue.He did not hear the breath, and he slipped slowly from some dreamto the feel of the tongue along his hand. He waited. The fangspressed softly; the pressure increased; the wolf was exerting itslast strength in an effort to sink teeth in the food for which ithad waited so long. But the man had waited long, and the laceratedhand closed on the jaw. Slowly, while the wolf struggled feeblyand the hand clutched feebly, the other hand crept across to agrip. Five minutes later the whole weight of the man's body was ontop of the wolf. The hands had not sufficient strength to chokethe wolf, but the face of the man was pressed close to the throatof the wolf and the mouth of the man was full of hair. At the endof 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 hisstomach, and it was forced by his will alone. Later the man rolledover on his back and slept.There were some members of a scientific expedition on the whale-ship Bedford. From the deck they remarked a strange object on theshore. It was moving down the beach toward the water. They wereunable to classify it, and, being scientific men, they climbed intothe whale-boat alongside and went ashore to see. And they sawsomething that was alive but which could hardly be called a man.It was blind, unconscious. It squirmed along the ground like somemonstrous worm. Most of its efforts were ineffectual, but it waspersistent, and it writhed and twisted and went ahead perhaps ascore of feet an hour.Three weeks afterward the man lay in a bunk on the whale-shipBedford, and with tears streaming down his wasted cheeks told whohe was and what he had undergone. He also babbled incoherently ofhis mother, of sunny Southern California, and a home among theorange groves and flowers.The days were not many after that when he sat at table with thescientific men and ship's officers. He gloated over the spectacleof so much food, watching it anxiously as it went into the mouthsof others. With the disappearance of each mouthful an expressionof deep regret came into his eyes. He was quite sane, yet he hatedthose men at mealtime. He was haunted by a fear that the foodwould not last. He inquired of the cook, the cabin-boy, thecaptain, concerning the food stores. They reassured him countlesstimes; but he could not believe them, and pried cunningly about thelazarette to see with his own eyes. It was noticed that the man was getting fat. He grew stouter witheach day. The scientific men shook their heads and theorized.They limited the man at his meals, but still his girth increasedand he swelled prodigiously under his shirt.The sailors grinned. They knew. And when the scientific men set awatch on the man, they knew too. They saw him slouch for'ard afterbreakfast, and, like a mendicant, with outstretched palm, accost asailor. The sailor grinned and passed him a fragment of seabiscuit. He clutched it avariciously, looked at it as a miserlooks at gold, and thrust it into his shirt bosom. Similar werethe donations from other grinning sailors.The scientific men were discreet. They let him alone. But theyprivily examined his bunk. It was lined with hardtack; themattress was stuffed with hardtack; every nook and cranny wasfilled with hardtack. Yet he was sane. He was taking precautionsagainst another possible famine - that was all. He would recoverfrom it, the scientific men said; and he did, ere the Bedford'sanchor rumbled down in San Francisco Bay.

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