________________________________________________
_ At Sixty Mile they restocked provisions, added a few pounds of
letters to their load, and held steadily on. From Forty Mile
they had had unbroken trail, and they could look forward only to
unbroken trail clear to Dyea. Daylight stood it magnificently,
but the killing pace was beginning to tell on Kama. His pride
kept his mouth shut, but the result of the chilling of his lungs
in the cold snap could not be concealed. Microscopically small
had been the edges of the lung-tissue touched by the frost, but
they now began to slough off, giving rise to a dry, hacking
cough. Any unusually severe exertion precipitated spells of
coughing, during which he was almost like a man in a fit. The
blood congested in his eyes till they bulged, while the tears ran
down his cheeks. A whiff of the smoke from frying bacon would
start him off for a half-hour's paroxysm, and he kept carefully
to windward when Daylight was cooking.
They plodded days upon days and without end over the soft,
unpacked snow. It was hard, monotonous work, with none of the
joy and blood-stir that went with flying over hard surface. Now
one man to the fore in the snowshoes, and now the other, it was a
case of stubborn, unmitigated plod. A yard of powdery snow had
to be pressed down, and the wide-webbed shoe, under a man's
weight, sank a full dozen inches into the soft surface. Snowshoe
work, under such conditions, called for the use of muscles other
than those used in ordinary walking. From step to step the
rising foot could not come up and forward on a slant. It had to
be raised perpendicularly. When the snowshoe was pressed into
the snow, its nose was confronted by a vertical wall of snow
twelve inches high. If the foot, in rising, slanted forward the
slightest bit, the nose of the shoe penetrated the obstructing
wall and tipped downward till the heel of the shoe struck the
man's leg behind. Thus up, straight up, twelve inches, each foot
must be raised every time and all the time, ere the forward swing
from the knee could begin.
On this partially packed surface followed the dogs, the man at
the gee-pole, and the sled. At the best, toiling as only picked
men could toil, they made no more than three miles an hour. This
meant longer hours of travel, and Daylight, for good measure and
for a margin against accidents, hit the trail for twelve hours a
day. Since three hours were consumed by making camp at night and
cooking beans, by getting breakfast in the morning and breaking
camp, and by thawing beans at the midday halt, nine hours were
left for sleep and recuperation, and neither men nor dogs wasted
many minutes of those nine hours.
At Selkirk, the trading post near Pelly River, Daylight suggested
that Kama lay over, rejoining him on the back trip from Dyea. A
strayed Indian from Lake Le Barge was willing to take his place;
but Kama was obdurate. He grunted with a slight intonation of
resentment, and that was all. The dogs, however, Daylight
changed, leaving his own exhausted team to rest up against his
return, while he went on with six fresh dogs.
They travelled till ten o'clock the night they reached Selkirk,
and at six next morning they plunged ahead into the next stretch
of wilderness of nearly five hundred miles that lay between
Selkirk and Dyea. A second cold snap came on, but cold or warm
it was all the same, an unbroken trail. When the thermometer
went down to fifty below, it was even harder to travel, for at
that low temperature the hard frost-crystals were more like
sand-grains in the resistance they offered to the sled runners.
The dogs had to pull harder than over the same snow at twenty or
thirty below zero. Daylight increased the day's travel to
thirteen hours. He jealously guarded the margin he had gained,
for he knew there were difficult stretches to come.
It was not yet quite midwinter, and the turbulent Fifty Mile
River vindicated his judgment. In many places it ran wide open,
with precarious rim-ice fringing it on either side. In numerous
places, where the water dashed against the steep-sided bluffs,
rim-ice was unable to form. They turned and twisted, now
crossing the river, now coming back again, sometimes making half
a dozen attempts before they found a way over a particularly bad
stretch. It was slow work. The ice-bridges had to be tested,
and either Daylight or Kama went in advance, snowshoes on their
feet, and long poles carried crosswise in their hands. Thus, if
they broke through, they could cling to the pole that bridged the
hole made by their bodies. Several such accidents were the share
of each. At fifty below zero, a man wet to the waist cannot
travel without freezing; so each ducking meant delay. As soon as
rescued, the wet man ran up and down to keep up his circulation,
while his dry companion built a fire. Thus protected, a change
of garments could be made and the wet ones dried against the next
misadventure.
To make matters worse, this dangerous river travel could not be
done in the dark, and their working day was reduced to the six
hours of twilight. Every moment was precious, and they strove
never to lose one. Thus, before the first hint of the coming of
gray day, camp was broken, sled loaded, dogs harnessed, and the
two men crouched waiting over the fire. Nor did they make the
midday halt to eat. As it was, they were running far behind
their schedule, each day eating into the margin they had run up.
There were days when they made fifteen miles, and days when they
made a dozen. And there was one bad stretch where in two days
they covered nine miles, being compelled to turn their backs
three times on the river and to portage sled and outfit over the
mountains.
At last they cleared the dread Fifty Mile River and came out on
Lake Le Barge. Here was no open water nor jammed ice. For
thirty miles or more the snow lay level as a table; withal it lay
three feet deep and was soft as flour. Three miles an hour was
the best they could make, but Daylight celebrated the passing of
the Fifty Mile by traveling late. At eleven in the morning they
emerged at the foot of the lake. At three in the afternoon, as
the Arctic night closed down, he caught his first sight of the
head of the lake, and with the first stars took his bearings. At
eight in the evening they left the lake behind and entered the
mouth of the Lewes River. Here a halt of half an hour was made,
while chunks of frozen boiled beans were thawed and the dogs
were given an extra ration of fish. Then they pulled on up the
river till one in the morning, when they made their regular camp.
They had hit the trail sixteen hours on end that day, the dogs
had come in too tired to fight among themselves or even snarl,
and Kama had perceptibly limped the last several miles; yet
Daylight was on trail next morning at six o'clock. By eleven he
was at the foot of White Horse, and that night saw him camped
beyond the Box Canon, the last bad river-stretch behind him, the
string of lakes before him.
There was no let up in his pace. Twelve hours a day, six in the
twilight, and six in the dark, they toiled on the trail. Three
hours were consumed in cooking, repairing harnesses, and making
and breaking camp, and the remaining nine hours dogs and men
slept as if dead. The iron strength of Kama broke. Day by day
the terrific toil sapped him. Day by day he consumed more of his
reserves of strength. He became slower of movement, the
resiliency went out of his muscles, and his limp became
permanent. Yet he labored stoically on, never shirking, never
grunting a hint of complaint. Daylight was thin-faced and tired.
He looked tired; yet somehow, with that marvelous mechanism of a
body that was his, he drove on, ever on, remorselessly on. Never
was he more a god in Kama's mind than in the last days of the
south-bound traverse, as the failing Indian watched him, ever to
the fore, pressing onward with urgency of endurance such as Kama
had never seen nor dreamed could thrive in human form.
The time came when Kama was unable to go in the lead and break
trail, and it was a proof that he was far gone when he permitted
Daylight to toil all day at the heavy snowshoe work. Lake by
lake they crossed the string of lakes from Marsh to Linderman,
and began the ascent of Chilcoot. By all rights, Daylight should
have camped below the last pitch of the pass at the dim end of
day; but he kept on and over and down to Sheep Camp, while behind
him raged a snow-storm that would have delayed him twenty-four
hours.
This last excessive strain broke Kama completely. In the morning
he could not travel. At five, when called, he sat up after a
struggle, groaned, and sank back again. Daylight did the camp
work of both, harnessed the dogs, and, when ready for the start,
rolled the helpless Indian in all three sleeping robes and lashed
him on top of the sled. The going was good; they were on the
last lap; and he raced the dogs down through Dyea Canon and along
the hard-packed trail that led to Dyea Post. And running still,
Kama groaning on top the load, and Daylight leaping at the
gee-pole to avoid going under the runners of the flying sled,
they arrived at Dyea by the sea.
True to his promise, Daylight did not stop. An hour's time saw
the sled loaded with the ingoing mail and grub, fresh dogs
harnessed, and a fresh Indian engaged. Kama never spoke from the
time of his arrival till the moment Daylight, ready to depart,
stood beside him to say good-by. They shook hands.
"You kill um dat damn Indian," Kama said. "Sawee, Daylight? You
kill um."
"He'll sure last as far as Pelly," Daylight grinned.
Kama shook his head doubtfully, and rolled over on his side,
turning his back in token of farewell.
Daylight won across Chilcoot that same day, dropping down five
hundred feet in the darkness and the flurrying snow to Crater
Lake, where he camped. It was a 'cold' camp, far above the
timber-line, and he had not burdened his sled with firewood.
That night three feet of snow covered them, and in the black
morning, when they dug themselves out, the Indian tried to
desert. He had had enough of traveling with what he considered a
madman. But Daylight persuaded him in grim ways to stay by the
outfit, and they pulled on across Deep Lake and Long Lake and
dropped down to the level-going of Lake Linderman. It was the
same killing pace going in as coming out, and the Indian did not
stand it as well as Kama. He, too, never complained. Nor did he
try again to desert. He toiled on and did his best, while he
renewed his resolve to steer clear of Daylight in the future.
The days slipped into days, nights and twilight's alternating,
cold snaps gave way to snow-falls, and cold snaps came on again,
and all the while, through the long hours, the miles piled up
behind them.
But on the Fifty Mile accident befell them. Crossing an
ice-bridge, the dogs broke through and were swept under the
down-stream ice. The traces that connected the team with the
wheel-dog parted, and the team was never seen again. Only the
one wheel-dog remained, and Daylight harnessed the Indian and
himself to the sled. But a man cannot take the place of a dog at
such work, and the two men were attempting to do the work of five
dogs. At the end of the first hour, Daylight lightened up.
Dog-food, extra gear, and the spare ax were thrown away. Under
the extraordinary exertion the dog snapped a tendon the following
day, and was hopelessly disabled. Daylight shot it, and
abandoned the sled. On his back he took one hundred and sixty
pounds of mail and grub, and on the Indian's put one hundred and
twenty-five pounds. The stripping of gear was remorseless. The
Indian was appalled when he saw every pound of worthless mail
matter retained, while beans, cups, pails, plates, and extra
clothing were thrown by the board. One robe each was kept, one
ax, one tin pail, and a scant supply of bacon and flour. Bacon
could be eaten raw on a pinch, and flour, stirred in hot water,
could keep men going. Even the rifle and the score of rounds of
ammunition were left behind.
And in this fashion they covered the two hundred miles to
Selkirk. Daylight travelled late and early, the hours formerly
used by camp-making and dog-tending being now devoted to the
trail. At night they crouched over a small fire, wrapped in
their robes, drinking flour broth and thawing bacon on the ends
of sticks; and in the morning darkness, without a word, they
arose, slipped on their packs, adjusted head-straps, and hit the
trail. The last miles into Selkirk, Daylight drove the Indian
before him, a hollow-cheeked, gaunt-eyed wraith of a man who else
would have lain down and slept or abandoned his burden of mail.
At Selkirk, the old team of dogs, fresh and in condition, were
harnessed, and the same day saw Daylight plodding on, alternating
places at the gee-pole, as a matter of course, with the Le Barge
Indian who had volunteered on the way out. Daylight was two days
behind his schedule, and falling snow and unpacked trail kept him
two days behind all the way to Forty Mile. And here the weather
favored. It was time for a big cold snap, and he gambled on it,
cutting down the weight of grub for dogs and men. The men of
Forty Mile shook their heads ominously, and demanded to know what
he would do if the snow still fell.
"That cold snap's sure got to come," he laughed, and mushed out
on the trail.
A number of sleds had passed back and forth already that winter
between Forty Mile and Circle City, and the trail was well
packed. And the cold snap came and remained, and Circle City was
only two hundred miles away. The Le Barge Indian was a young
man, unlearned yet in his own limitations, and filled with pride.
He took Daylight's pace with joy, and even dreamed, at first,
that he would play the white man out. The first hundred miles he
looked for signs of weakening, and marveled that he saw them not.
Throughout the second hundred miles he observed signs in himself,
and gritted his teeth and kept up. And ever Daylight flew on
and on, running at the gee-pole or resting his spell on top the
flying sled. The last day, clearer and colder than ever, gave
perfect going, and they covered seventy miles. It was ten at
night when they pulled up the earth-bank and flew along the main
street of Circle City; and the young Indian, though it was his
spell to ride, leaped off and ran behind the sled. It was
honorable braggadocio, and despite the fact that he had found his
limitations and was pressing desperately against them, he ran
gamely on. _
Read next: PART I: CHAPTER VI
Read previous: PART I: CHAPTER IV
Table of content of Burning Daylight
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
