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The Trail of '98: A Northland Romance, a novel by Robert W. Service |
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Book 4. The Vortex - Chapter 16 |
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_ BOOK IV. THE VORTEX CHAPTER XVI At last, at last we had climbed over the divide, and left behind us forever the vampire valley. Oh, we were glad! But other troubles were coming. Soon the day came when the last of our grub ran out. I remember how solemnly we ate it. We were already more than three-parts starved, and that meal was but a mouthful. "Well," said the Halfbreed, "we can't be far from the Yukon now. It must be the valley beyond this one. Then, in a few days, we can make a raft and float down to Dawson." This heartened us, so once more we took up our packs and started. Jim did not move. "Come on, Jim." Still no movement. "What's the matter, Jim? Come on." He turned to us a face that was grey and deathlike. "Go on, boys. Don't mind me. My time's up. I'm an old man. I'm only keeping you back. Without me you've got a chance; with me you've got none. Leave me here with a gun. I can shoot an' rustle grub. You boys can come back for me. You'll find old Jim spry an' chipper, awaitin' you with a smile on his face. Now go, boys. You'll go, won't you?" "Go be darned!" said the Prodigal. "You know we'll never leave you, Jim. You know the code of the trail. What d'ye take us for--skunks? Come on, we'll carry you if you can't walk." He shook his head pitifully, but once more he crawled after us. We ourselves were making no great speed. Lack of food was beginning to tell on us. Our stomachs were painfully empty and dead. "How d'ye feel?" asked the Prodigal. His face had an arrestively hollow look, but that frozen smile was set on it. "All right," I said, "only terribly weak. My head aches at times, but I've got no pain." "Neither have I. This starving racket's a cinch. It's dead easy. What rot they talk about the gnawing pains of hunger, an' ravenous men chewing up their boot-tops. It's easy. There's no pain. I don't even feel hungry any more." None of us did. It was as if our stomachs, in despair at not receiving any food, had sunk into apathy. Yet there was no doubt we were terribly weak. We only made a few miles a day now, and even that was an effort. The distance seemed to be elastic, to stretch out under our feet. Every few yards we had to help Jim over a bad place. His body was emaciated and he was getting very feeble. A hollow fire burned in his eyes. The Halfbreed persisted that beyond those despotic mountains lay the Yukon Valley, and at night he would rouse us up: "Say, boys, I hear the 'toot' of a steamer. Just a few more days and we'll get there." Running through the valley, we found a little river. It was muddy in colour and appeared to contain no fish. We ranged along it eagerly, hoping to find a few minnows, but without success. It seemed to me, as I foraged here and there for food, it was not hunger that impelled me so much as the instinct of self-preservation. I knew that if I did not get something into my stomach I would surely die. Down the river we trailed forlornly. For a week we had eaten nothing. Jim had held on bravely, but now he gave up. "For God's sake, leave me, boys! Don't make me feel guilty of your death. Haven't I got enough on my soul already? For God's pity, lads, save yourselves! Leave me here to die." He pleaded brokenly. His legs seemed to have become paralysed. Every time we stopped he would pitch forward on his face, or while walking he would fall asleep and drop. The Prodigal and I supported him, but it was truly hard to support ourselves, and sometimes we collapsed, coming down all three together in a confused and helpless heap. The Prodigal still wore that set grin. His face was nigh fleshless, and, through the straggling beard, it sometimes minded me of a grinning skull. Always Jim moaned and pleaded: "Leave me, dear boys, leave me!" He was like a drunken man, and his every step was agony. We threw away our packs. We no longer had the strength to bear them. The last thing to go was the Halfbreed's rifle. Several times it dropped out of his hand. He picked it up in a dazed way. Again and again it dropped, but at last the time came when he no longer picked it up. He looked at it for a stupid while, then staggered on without it. At night we would rest long hours round the camp-fire. Often far into the day would we rest. Jim lay like a dead man, moaning continually, while we, staring into each other's ghastly faces, talked in jerks. It was an effort to hunt food. It was an effort to goad ourselves to continue the journey. "Sure the river empties into the Yukon, boys," said the Halfbreed. "'Tain't so far, either. If we can just make a few miles more we'll be all right." At night, in my sleep, I was a prey to the strangest hallucinations. People I had known came and talked to me. They were so real that, when I awoke, I could scarce believe I had been dreaming. Berna came to me often. She came quite close, with great eyes of pity that looked into mine. Her lips moved. "Be brave, my boy. Don't despair," she pleaded. Always in my dreams she pleaded like that, and I think that but for her I would have given up. The Halfbreed was the most resolute of the party. He never lost his head. At times we others raved a little, or laughed a little, or cried a little, but the Halfbreed remained cool and grim. Ceaselessly he foraged for food. Once he found a nest of grouse eggs, and, breaking them open, discovered they contained half-formed birds. We ate them just as they were, crunched them between our swollen gums. Snails, too, we ate sometimes, and grass roots and moss which we scraped from the trees. But our greatest luck was the decayed grouse eggs. Early one afternoon we were all resting by a camp-fire on which was boiling some moss, when suddenly the Halfbreed pointed. There, in a glade down by the river's edge, were a cow moose and calf. They were drinking. Stupidly we gazed. I saw the Halfbreed's hand go out as if to clutch the rifle. Alas! his fingers closed on the empty air. So near they were we could have struck them with a stone. Taking his sheath knife in his mouth, the Halfbreed started to crawl on his belly towards them. He had gone but a few yards when they winded him. One look they gave, and in a few moments they were miles away. That was the only time I saw the Halfbreed put out. He fell on his face and lay there for a long time. Often we came to sloughs that we could not cross, and we had to go round them. We tried to build rafts, but we were too weak to navigate them. We were afraid we would roll off into the deep black water and drown feebly. So we went round, which in one case meant ten miles. Once, over a slough a few yards wide, the Halfbreed built a bridge of willows, and we crawled on hands and knees to the other side. From a certain point our trip seems like a nightmare to me. I can only remember parts of it here and there. We reeled like drunken men. We sobbed sometimes, and sometimes we prayed. There was no word from Jim now, not even a whimper, as we half dragged, half carried him on. Our eyes were large with fever, our hands were like claws. Long sickly beards grew on our faces. Our clothes were rags, and vermin overran us. We had lost all track of time. Latterly we had been travelling about half a mile a day, and we must have been twenty days without proper food. The Halfbreed had crawled ahead a mile or so, and he came back to where we lay. In a voice hoarse almost to a whisper he told us a bigger river joined ours down there, and on the bar was an old Indian camp. Perhaps in that place some one might find us. It seemed on the route of travel. So we made a last despairing effort and reached it. Indians had visited it quite recently. We foraged around and found some putrid fish bones, with which we made soup. There was a grave set high on stilts, and within it a body covered with canvas. The Halfbreed wrenched the canvas from the body, and with it he made a boat eight feet in length by six in breadth. It was too rotten to hold him up, and he nearly drowned trying to float it, so he left it lying on the edge of the bar. I remember this was a terrible disappointment to us, and we wept bitterly. I think that about this time we were all half-crazy. We lay on that bar like men already dead, with no longer hope of deliverance. * * * * * Then Jim passed in his checks. In the night he called me. "Boy," he whispered, "you an' I'se been good pals, ain't we?" "Yes, old man." "Boy, I'm in agony. I'm suffering untold pain. Get the gun, for God's sake, an' put me out of my misery." "There's no gun, Jim; we left it back on the trail." "Then take your knife." "No, no." "Give me your knife." "Jim, you're crazy. Where's your faith in God?" "Gone, gone; I've no longer any right to look to Him. I've killed. I've taken life He gave. 'Vengeance is mine,' He said, an' I've taken it out of His hands. God's curse is on me now. Oh, let me die, let me die!" I sat by him all night. He moaned in agony, and his passing was hard. It was about three in the morning when he spoke again: "Say, boy, I'm going. I'm a useless old man. I've lived in sin, an' I've repented, an' I've backslid. The Lord don't want old Jim any more. Say, kid, see that little girl of mine down in Dawson gets what money's comin' to me. Tell her to keep straight, an' tell her I loved her. Tell her I never let up on lovin' her all these years. You'll remember that, boy, won't you?" "I'll remember, Jim." "Oh, it's all a hoodoo, this Northern gold," he moaned. "See what it's done for all of us. We came to loot the land an' it's a-takin' its revenge on us. It's accursed. It's got me at last, but maybe I can help you boys to beat it yet. Call the others." I called them. "Boys," said Jim, "I'm a-goin'. I've been a long time about it. I've been dying by inches, but I guess I'll finish the job pretty slick this time. Well, boys, I'm in possession of all my faculties. I want you to know that. I was crazy when I started off, but that's passed away. My mind's clear. Now, pardners, I've got you into this scrape. I'm responsible, an' it seems to me I'd die happier if you'd promise me one thing. Livin', I can't help you; dead, I can--you know how. Well, I want you to promise me you'll do it. It's a reasonable proposition. Don't hesitate. Don't let sentiment stop you. I wish it. It's my dying wish. You're starvin', an' I can help you, can give you strength. Will you promise, if it comes to the last pass, you'll do it?" We were afraid to look each other in the face. "Oh, promise, boys, promise!" "Promise him anyway," said the Halfbreed. "He'll die easier." So we nodded our heads as we bent over him, and he turned away his face, content. 'Twas but a little after he called me again. "Boy, give me your hand. Say a prayer for me, won't you? Maybe it'll help some, a prayer for a poor old sinner that's backslid. I can never pray again." "Yes, try to pray, Jim, try. Come on; say it after me: 'Our Father--'" "'Our Father--'" "'Which art in Heaven--'" "'Which art in--'" His head fell forward. "Bless you, my boy. Father, forgive, forgive--" He sank back very quietly. He was dead. * * * * * Next morning the Halfbreed caught a minnow. We divided it into three and ate it raw. Later on he found some water-lice under a stone. We tried to cook them, but they did not help us much. Then, as night fell once more, a thought came into our minds and stuck there. It was a hidden thought, and yet it grew and grew. As we sat round in a circle we looked into each other's faces, and there we read the same revolting thought. Yet did it not seem so revolting after all. It was as if the spirit of the dead man was urging us to this thing, so insistent did the thought become. It was our only hope of life. It meant strength again, strength and energy to make a raft and float us down the river. Oh, if only--but, no! We could not do it. Better, a hundred times better, die. Yet life was sweet, and for twenty-three days we had starved. Here was a chance to live, with the dead man whispering in our ears to do it. You who have never starved a day in your lives, would you blame us? Life is sweet to you, too. What would you have done? The dead man was urging us, and life was sweet. But we struggled, God knows we struggled. We did not give in without agony. In our hopeless, staring eyes there was the anguish of the great temptation. We looked in each other's death's-head faces. We clasped skeleton hands round our rickety knees, and swayed as we tried to sit upright. Vermin crawled over us in our weakness. We were half-crazy, and muttered in our beards. It was the Halfbreed who spoke, and his voice was just a whisper: "It's our only chance, boys, and we've promised him. God forgive me, but I've a wife and children, and I'm a-goin' to do it." He was too weak to rise, and with his knife in his mouth he crawled to the body. * * * * * It was ready, but we had not eaten. We waited and waited, hoping against hope. Then, as we waited, God was merciful to us. He saved us from this thing. "Say, I guess I've got a pipe-dream, but I think I see two men coming downstream on a raft." "No, it's no dream," I said; "two men." "Shout to them; I can't," said the Prodigal. I tried to shout, but my voice came as a whisper. The Halfbreed, too, tried to shout. There was scarcely any sound to it. The men did not see us as we lay on that shingly bar. Faster and faster they came. In hopeless, helpless woe we watched them. We could do nothing. In a few moments they would be past. With eyes of terror we followed them, tried to make signals to them. O God, help us! Suddenly they caught sight of that crazy boat of ours made of canvas and willows. They poled the raft in close, then one of them saw those three strange things writhing impotently on the sand. They were skeletons, they were in rags, they were covered with vermin.-- * * * We were saved; thank God, we were saved! _ |
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