CHAPTER XII.
Before the daylight was strong we had broken camp, and were again going forward, and always we could discern, in the dim light, that there were two trails ahead of us. The stars paled at last, and the white glow was stronger, making everything distinct. My fears that the second sled was in pursuit of the first were proven, now that we could see more plainly; for at intervals, when we came to abrupt bends of the rapidly narrowing stream, we would find those distinct letterings in the snow that told that before the pursuers had ventured around a bend one of them had walked cautiously to the outer edge and looked ahead. It was certain that they were closer to the Hatchet than we were to them, and that they feared to surprise him.
We began to admit that we were not alone in the chase, and had the sense of lively speculation as to who these others were, and how they had learned of the flight. Only, as the trail led on and on, we were not certain whether the foot-marks were those of natives or white men.
“Maybe it is Constantine,” I said once to Kentucky. “Perhaps he is following his sister, and proposes to bring her back.”
“Might be,” answered Kentucky. “He's an odd sort of a stick. But if he followed it wouldn't be to bring the Hatchet back! You can bet on that. The Hatchet would be left on the trail for good and all. That Constantine is a chap I wouldn't want for an enemy.”
He stood for a while, and then exclaimed: “By jingo, Tom, I'll bet it is him! He's changed his mind, and he's made it up now to go after 'em. He can mush like the devil, Constantine can. I gathered some talk he handed her about some other native down in the village who wanted her, and was of her own tribe, and it may be that Mister Sioux-man has got a pair of bloodhounds on his trail, just waitin' till he gets far enough away to make it safe, and that then, some nice evening—ping! Down he es, with one of those H. B. slugs through him. Kicks a few, and—the Hatchet never comes back.”
I began to think that possibly Kentuck's surmise might be right; but on the trail one has time for many speculations and many thoughts. That is, I had as many as Kentucky would allow me, for of all the trail mates I had ever had, he was the most cheerful and unfailing. Those who know will bear me out when I say that an Alaskan trail is the place to learn men. There the soul is bared. In civilization a man may live forever under a mask, but the trail strips it from him as if it were gauze, and he is himself, and those with him know that he is naked in soul and disposition.
That eminent sage of the frontier, long since dead, discoverer of Eldorado Creek, in Klondike, Elihu Whipple, was wont to say: “You kin tell what a man is when you've eat a sack of flour with him; but with some men it only takes a half a sack.” And the diminishing sack with Kentucky Smith each day proved him more of a man than I had thought. He began to loom colossal with his untiring energy, his unfailing cheerfulness, his persistent attempt to do more than his share.
We had expected to overtake, or at least come within sound of, our quarry within two or three days, for we were driving the dogs to their utmost; but the two days passed, then stretched on into ten, with ever-recurring monotony. We had swung to the westward, and crossed the Koyukuk far below where we knew there was an Indian village, and were now heading toward the north-west, with its piled-up hills, its bleak flats, its timber found only in belts. And ill luck appeared to travel with us, gauntly trailing beside our sled.
The second blow came when one of the new dogs sickened, until, abandoning hope for him, we had to put him out of his misery. We could not understand his malady, unless it came from overwork. The other dog followed him within a £ew days, and we began to fear that it was pneumonia. Each dog out of the harness meant, notwithstanding the constantly diminishing load, more wearisome labor.
We traveled longer hours, and slept less to offset that loss, still confident that sooner or later the long trail must end, and thanked Heaven that the cold was so intense, and the winter so still; that the trails ahead, constantly leading us farther into the solitudes, were not blinded.
Some days we thought we must have gained, then would come others when we were discouraged and surmised that we were losing in this tireless race. And always, ahead of us, were two trails. Added to this was another fear, that our food would give out. Already the dogs had been reduced to half rations, and to their ravenous jaws were flung but a half fish a day, while we, too, were measuring each flake of oatmeal, and each scrap of bacon.
We lost another day, but on looking back I think it saved our lives. It was the day when the dogs refused to follow the trail, and gave the long, wolf-hunting cry, and we knew that game was somewhere within scent, coming down the wind. We took a chance, and muzzled them, and I left Kentucky to make camp and wait, while I passed off into that slow-moving breeze with nothing but my rifle. And, as if Heaven had spared us, I killed a moose. I made my way back to the camp, and we moved it to the new-sent relief, where we froze all of the meat that we could carry in strips, fed the dogs to repletion, and prepared to make up for lost distance with this surplus energy; but we had lost a day.
A day later, on the trail, we found a dead dog, waiting for the wolves, perhaps. And the next day another left to die in misery, staggering along, and calling to us, and humanity made us execute him. We had begun to fear starvation, in that land of unreality, and Kentucky turned back and picked up the gaunt body.
“I think,” he said, “that we'd better tie him up in a tree somewhere.”
I looked into his eyes, and understood. He, too, had thought of the end, of what might be the distress of that homeward trail; but he was unflinching.
“Maybe it is best to be on the safe side,” I replied, and we lashed the poor victim high up in the limbs of a tree, with a sacrificed piece of sled lashing, and went on, wondering whether that poor, worked-out body might not become our goal when other food was gone.
On the next day we trailed more dismally, for the cold had clung to our hearts, and we moved speechlessly. rested speechlessly, and were tired of peering ahead to see nothing but the two trails leading away over the white and cruel snow. We entered a patch of scrubby timber as the afternoon advanced, and now those persistent marks of two sleds wound in and out among trees, the heaviest growth we had seen for days.
Suddenly Malicula lifted his head, which had been drooping, and tugged at his harness, then gave a long wail, and plunged forward more recklessly. Alarmed, I ran back, and caught and stopped him.
“We're up to them, or else it's a hunting party,” I said to Kentucky. “Something's in the wind, and it must be a camp, or the dogs wouldn't act this way. I know them. Go on carefully, and see what it is, while I hold them.”
I pulled them over until the brace under the nose of the sled was wedged against the stump of a fallen tree, and waited. The dogs quieted, and, glad of a chance to rest, laid down in their harnesses, with their noses on their paws, huddled together, regardless of snarls, and seeking one another's warmth. Almost an hour passed, and I was trudging backward and forward, and threshing my arms to keep my blood in circulation, when Kentucky returned.
“I cain't make it out,” he said, with a serious face, and approaching close before he spoke, as if still fearful, in all that terrific waste, of being overheard. “There's a dog tent up ahead, and smoke coming from the pipe, and a man singing, as if he were about drunk. There ain't no dogs, because I went close enough to see that, and, besides, nothin' barked. Let's drive a little farther, then tie our dogs, and go and have a look.”
“But what was the man singing?” I asked, puzzled by his story.
“Singin'? Oh, you mean the tune, or language? I don't know. I couldn't make out.”
I thought for a few moments, and then made a resolution.
“We will go straight through,” I said. “Because, if it's a hunting party, it's good for us—unless they are starving—our grub is running low. It can't be the Sioux, because he wouldn't sing. If it is Constantine, he would let us travel with him. We've nothing to lose, and everything to gain. Besides, it's about time to camp.”
“Bully for you,” answered Kentucky, with his usual cheerfulness. “Hey, get up there till we get this harness straightened out!” he addressed the dogs, as he stirred them from their rest.
They started forward again eagerly, with their noses in the air, and barking, as if smelling the smoke of a camp; but when we were closer to it Malicula suddenly began to slacken on his rope, and his ruff was raised, and he turned and looked at me, whining. Even as I started toward him he raised his white throat and broad, gray wolf head into the air, and sent forth a melancholy howl that sent shivers creeping up and down my spine.
“Now, what do you suppose made him do that?” Kentuck shouted, as the other dogs joined the wailing chorus.
“I'm afraid,” I said, “that there's something wrong up there. come back and take the handles.”
I went forward, and patted the leader with a reassuring caress, and he looked up at me with his intelligent eyes, and followed when I spoke to him. The team straightened out, and the sled surged forward slowly, as I led the way. I came to an open spot across which the two white trails led, and saw, not more than a hundred feet away, in the gloom of the day, the squat shape of a prospector's tent thrown between two trees. The birches and firs stood there denuded, like an oasis on the borders of a far-flung spread of white beyond, leading up to a low hill. It was true that smoke was crawling laggardly upward, and a droning voice was wailing undistinguishable words. The dogs pulled back, and I urged them forward. The voice went on monotonously, and as I came closer I could hear nothing but a singsong, without language or meaning.
“Hello!” I shouted, to announce our coming, and listened. The singsong did not cease, but continued as steadily as before. I looked back at Kentuck, and we walked forward together, leaving the dogs huddled on the trail, with the nose of the sled wedged against the base of a tree, so they could not overturn it or escape.
Again we called at the outside of the tent, but without eliciting response or cessation of the song. We opened the tent fly, which had been loosely lashed, and looked inside. Resting on his back beneath his blankets, and with his hands under his head, was a white man. We entered, and I looked down into his eyes. Apparently he was delirious, and perhaps dying.
“Don't you know who it is?” whispered Kentuck in my ear, as if fearing to stop that chant.
“No,” I whispered back, my voice sounding loud and harsh in that stillness, broken only by the humming of the man in the blankets. '
“It's Sparhawk, the feller we saw at Singer's dance. Somethin's the matter with him.”
I leaned over, and called his name, and after a time he stared back at me, became silent, and then rolled over on his side, and feebly put another small stick of wood into the stove, as if the habit of winter trails and camps had survived his reason—an automatic action instilled in men when life depends on beat. I dragged from my pocket my brandy flask, kept for emergencies only, and put it to his lips. I had to drag it away from him, lest he empty it. It appeared to revive him. He rolled over to one elbow, and his eyes lost their strange, uncanny glare.
“Grub!” he said. "For God's sake give me somethin' to eat. I've lived on raw oatmeal—years—years and Where's Royce? Oh, yes, I recollect now. Who are you? Seems like I know you. You ain't”
“I am the man you saw at Singer's dance,” I said, speaking loudly, as if believing I must shout to make him understood. "What's the matter with you?”
He turned over again, and then fell back, as if exhausted, on his blankets, and asked for food, his reiterated “Grub! Grub!” sounding painfully insistent.
I looked around the little tent. It was littered everywhere in confusion, as if in his illness Sparhawk had rifled it, and stolen from himself. He had subsided now, and lay there with his eyes closed in a ghastly way, with the whites showing, as if physical strength were insufficient to, close them.
I turned with Kentucky, and hurried outside. We took the lashings off the sled in haste, and I went back into the tent with a stew kettle and a strip of the precious frozen moose meat in my hand. The wood was almost exhausted, and Sparhawk still lay with his eyes closed in that same half-dead way. I feared for an instant that he was dead, and leaned over to catch his faint breathing. He did not look like the strong man I had seen that night at the squaw dance. I wondered what could have brought him to this, for it scarcely seemed that starvation alone could have been so deadly. I feared that he was dying, and hastened my preparations, through which he slept in that same inert way.
I heard Kentuck having trouble with the dogs.
“Hang it all!” he said, “they're afraid of somethin'. What shall I do with 'em? Tie 'em up?”
“Yes,” I called back softly, and heard him go about this task, then the ring of his ax as he felled a tree for fuel.
“Feed the dogs,” I called, “and maybe they'll get over it. And give them a fish each to-night, so they'll feel better.”
“Good medicine,” I heard his response.
Then I aroused Sparhawk and poured the steaming broth down his throat as I lifted him up with a hand behind his shoulders. I gave him all I dared, then laid him back on the blankets, and he again went to sleep. I went outside, and carried in our supplies, dropping to my knees inside the tent, and hungry, and wondering. The dogs, too tired to utter further protest, and too happy to find such an abundant meal, were smelling around the snow for last fragments of frozen fish. Kentucky came in with the blankets, and whispered, as if fearing to arouse the sleeper; “What's he got to say?”
I shook my head, and threw the bacon in the pan, and stirred the flapjack batter, preparatory to making our bread supply. Kentuck sat there, staring at the recumbent Sparhawk for a time, then went out and filled the pan with snow, and put it where it could melt. I heard him pass outside, and go from dog to dog with a friendly word, as if they were still nervous, then wash his hands in snow torn from the bank around the foot of the tent. The candle, stuck in a crotched stick, flared brighter, and I poured the first batter in the frying pan, and watched it come to a brown before flipping and turning it.
Kentucky entered, and piled some of his newly cut wood over the tent fly to hold it down, and t my suggestive nod picked up the first pancake and strips of bacon, and rolled them into a convenient handful. He ate solemnly and silently, staring thoughtfully at Sparhawk, who still slept. I lifted the Cœur d'Alener's head, and again held the broth to his lips. This time it was stronger; but he swallowed greedily, and then, without word or look, fell asleep.
We had finished our meal, seen to it that the dogs were asleep, and washed out our cooking utensils before Sparhawk awoke. Then he suddenly tried to sit up, and fell back, clutching his side. The strength of his delirium had deserted him, and he lay there staring at us, but with sane eyes.
“How did you get here?” he croaked feebly.
“Over the trail,” Kentuck answered, with an assumption of cheerfulness.
Sparhawk appeared to be trying to remember.
“We're north, ain't we? A long ways from anywhere?”
“We are,” I answered. “We've been following what we think must have been your trail.”
Again he lay quiet for a moment, and then said: “And the Hatchet's?”
“I suppose so.”
The pause was longer this time, and he appeared to be thinking over something. I thought it best to give him more of the broth, which had now become thick and nourishing, and he weakly let me lift him up, and hold it to his lips. It seemed to strengthen him somewhat, and his eyes appeared more thoughtful.
“You know where he's headin' for, then?”
I nodded my head, as did Kentuck.
“Well, then you know that he's after the red gold. I've been—I've been goin' out for so long that I lost count of the days. I can't make it. I'm a goner. I'm goin' to cash in. Maybe I'd best tell you how it happened. The Hatchet got me. come over here and look.”
He clawed with his emaciated hands at the blankets, and I pulled them down, to draw back, shocked. His whole shoulder was crudely swathed, but the stained bandages had fallen away, and been displaced in that instinctive effort to keep alive, maintained through his delirium, and a gaping wound was exposed, such as that made by a heavy, slow-moving bullet when its force has been almost expended. It led through the upper part of his lung, as nearly as I could judge, and was a frightful hole.
“The Hatchet gave me that,” he said. “No use tryin' to fix it up! I'm a goner. Just give me some more of that soup.”
Again I held the kettle to his lips, and he drained it greedily, feverishly. He would have talked then, but I made him keep quiet, and tried to dress his wound as best I might, although he constantly assured me that it was a useless ministration. But it had this effect, that he went to sleep, exhausted, before I had finished, and we laid out our blankets and did likewise, without his having said anything more. Only now and then, through the night, the dogs howled as if the air were filled with spirits of the dead.