In this infernal irony of an existence why do the good things of life always come when we no longer have the same appetite to enjoy them? The year following, in which Berna and I kept house, was not altogether a happy one. Somehow we had both just missed something. We had suffered too much to recover our poise very easily. We were sick, not in body, but in mind. The thought of her terrible experience haunted her. She was as sensitive as the petal of a delicate flower, and often would I see her lips quiver and a look of pain come into her eyes. Then I knew of what she was thinking. I knew, and I, too, suffered.
I tried to make her forget, yet I could not succeed; and even in my most happy moments there was always a shadow, the shadow of Locasto; there was always a fear, the fear of his return. Yes, it seemed at times as if we were two unfortunates, as if our happiness had come too late, as if our lives were irretrievably shipwrecked.
Locasto! where was he? For near a year had he been gone, somewhere in that wild country at the Back of Beyond. Somewhere amid the wilder peaks and valleys of the Rockies he fought his desperate battle with the Wild. There had been sinister rumours of two lone prospectors who had perished up in that savage country, of two bodies that lay rotting and half buried by a landslide. I had a sudden, wild hope that one of them might be my enemy; for I hated him and I would have joyed at his death. When I loved Berna most exquisitely, when I gazed with tender joy upon her sweetness, when, with glad, thankful eyes, I blessed her for the sympathy and sunshine of her presence, then between us would come a shadow, dark, menacing and mordant. So the joy-light would vanish from my eyes and a great sadness fall upon me.
What would I do if he returned? I wondered. Perhaps if he left us alone I might let by-gones be by-gones; but if he ever came near her again—well, I oiled the chambers of my Colt and heard its joyous click as it revolved. "That's for him," I said, "that's for him, if by look, by word, or by act he ever molests her again." And I meant it, too. Suffering had hardened me, made me dangerous. I would have killed him.
Then, as the months went past and the suspicion of his fate deepened almost to a certainty, I began to breathe more freely. I noticed, too, a world of difference in Berna. She grew light-hearted. She sang and laughed a good deal. The sunshine came back to her eyes, and the shadow seldom lingered there. Sometimes the thought that we were not legally married troubled me, but on all sides were men living with their Klondike wives, either openly or secretly, and where this domestic ménage was conducted in quietness there was little comment on it. We lived to ourselves, and for ourselves. We left our neighbours alone. We made few friends, and in the ferment of social life we were almost unnoticed.
Of course, the Prodigal expostulated with me in severe terms. I did not attempt to argue with him. He would not have understood my point of view. There are heights and depths in life to which he with his practical mind could never attain. Yet he became very fond of Berna, and often visited us.
"Why don't you go and get churched decently, if you love her?" he demanded.
"So I will," I answered calmly; "give me a little time. Wait till we get more settled."
And, indeed, we were up to our necks in business these days. Our Gold Hill property had turned out well. We had a gang of men employed there, and I made frequent trips out to Bonanza. We had given the Halfbreed a small interest, and installed him as manager. The Jam-wagon, too, we had employed as a sort of assistant foreman. Jim was busy installing his hydraulic plant on Ophir Creek, and altogether we had enough to think about. I had set my heart on making a hundred thousand dollars, and as things were looking it seemed as if two more years would bring me to that mark.
"Then," said I to Berna, "we'll go and travel all over the world, and do it in style."
"Will we, dear?" she answered tenderly. "But I don't want money much now, and I don't know that I care so much about travel either. What I would like would be to go to your home, and settle down and live quietly. What I want is a nice flower garden, and a pony to drive into town, and a home to fuss about. I would embroider, and read, and play a little, and cook things, and—just be with you."
She was greatly interested in my description of Glengyle. She never tired of questioning me about it. Particularly was she interested in my accounts of Garry, and rather scoffed at my enthusiastic description of him.
"Oh, that wonderful brother of yours! One would think he was a small god, to hear you talk. I declare I'm half afraid of him. Do you think he would like me?"
"He would love you, little girl; any one would."
"Don't be foolish," she chided me. And then she drew my head down and kissed me.
I think we had the prettiest little cabin in all Dawson. The big logs were peeled smooth, and the ends squarely cut. The chinks were filled in with mortar. The whole was painted a deep rich crimson. The roof was covered with sheet-iron, and it, too, was painted crimson. There was a deep porch to it. It was the snuggest, neatest little home in the world.
Windows hung with dainty lace curtains peeped through its clustering greenery of vines, but the glory of it all was the flower garden. There was a bewildering variety of flowers, but mostly I remember stocks and pinks, Iceland poppies, marguerites, asters, marigolds, verbenas, hollyhocks, pansies and petunias, growing in glorious profusion. Even the roughest miner would stand and stare at them as he tramped past on the board sidewalk.
They were a mosaic of glowing colour, yet the crowning triumph was the poppies and sweet peas. Set in the centre of the lawn was a circle that was a leaping glow of poppies. Of every shade were they, from starry pink to luminous gold, from snowy white to passionate crimson. Like vari-coloured lamps they swung, and wakened you to wonder and joy with the exultant challenge of their beauty. And the sweet peas! All up the south side of the cabin they grew, overtopping the eaves in their riotous perfection. They rivalled the poppies in the radiant confusion of their colour, and they were so lavish of blossom we could not pick them fast enough. I think ours was the pioneer garden of the gold-born city, and awakened many to the growth-giving magic of the long, long day.
And it was the joy and pride of Berna's heart. I would sit on the porch of a summer's evening when down the mighty Yukon a sunset of vast and violent beauty flamed and languished, and I would watch her as she worked among her flowers. I can see her flitting figure in a dress of dainty white as she hovered over a beautiful blossom. I can hear her calling me, her voice like the music of a flute, calling me to come and see some triumph of her skill. I have a picture of her coming towards me with her arms full of flowers, burying her face lovingly among the velvet petals, and raising it again, the sweetest flower of all. How radiantly outshone her eyes, and her face, delicate as a cameo, seemed to have stolen the fairest tints of the lily and the rose.
Starry vines screened the porch, and everywhere were swinging baskets of silver birch, brimming over with the delicate green of smilax or clouded in an amethystine mist of lobelias. I can still see the little sitting-room with its piano, its plenitude of cushions, its book-rack, its Indian corner, its tasteful paper, its pictures, and always and everywhere flowers, flowers. The air was heavy with the fragrance of them. They glorified the crudest corner, and made our home like a nook in fairyland.
I remember one night as I sat reading she came to me. Never did I see her look so happy. She was almost childlike in her joy. She sat down by my chair and looked up at me. Then she put her arms around me.
"Oh, I'm so happy," she said with a sigh.
"Are you, dearest?" I caressed the soft floss of her hair.
"Yes, I just wish we could live like this forever;" and she nestled up to me ever so fondly.
Aye, she was happy, and I will always bless the memory of those days, and thank God I was the means of bringing a little gladness into her marred life. She was happy, and yet we were living in what society would call sin. Conventionally we were not man and wife, yet never were man and wife more devoted, more self-respecting. Never were man and wife endowed with purer ideals, with a more exalted conception of the sanctity of love. Yet there were many in the town not half so delicate, so refined, so spiritual, who would have passed my little lady like a pariah. But what cared we?
And perhaps it was the very greatness of my love for her that sometimes made me fear; so that often in the ecstasy of a moment I would catch my breath and wonder if it all could last. And when the poplars turned to gold, and up the valley stole a shuddering breath of desolation, my fear grew apace. The sky was all resplendent with the winter stars, and keen and hard their facets sparkled. And I knew that somewhere underneath those stars there slept Locasto. But was it the sleep of the living or of the dead? Would he return?
Two men were crawling over the winter-locked plain. In the aching circle of its immensity they were like little black ants. One, the leader, was of great bulk and of a vast strength; while the other was small and wiry, of the breed that clings like a louse to life while better men perish.
On all sides of the frozen lake over which they were travelling were hills covered with harsh pine, that pricked funereally up to the boulder-broken snows. Above that was a stormy and fantastic sea of mountains baring many a fierce peak-fang to the hollow heavens. The sky was a waxen grey, cold as a corpse-light. The snow was an immaculate shroud, unmarked by track of bird or beast. Death-sealed the land lay in its silent vastitude, in its despairful desolation.
The small man was breaking trail. Down almost to his knees in the soft snow, he sank at every step; yet ever he dragged a foot painfully upward, and made another forward plunge. The snowshoe thong, jagged with ice, chafed him cruelly. The muscles of his legs ached as insistently as if clamped in a vice. He lurched forward with fatigue, so that he seemed to be ever stumbling, yet recovering himself.
"Come on there, you darned little shrimp; get a move on you," growled the big man from within the frost-fringed hood of his parka.
The little man started as if galvanised into sudden life. His breath steamed and almost hissed as it struck the icy air. At each raw intake of it his chest heaved. He beat his mittened hands on his breast to keep them from freezing. Under the hood of his parka great icicles had formed, hanging to the hairs of his beard, walrus-like, and his eyes, thickly wadded with frost, glared out with the furtive fear of a hunted beast.
"Curse him, curse him," he whimpered; but once more he lifted those leaden snowshoes and staggered on.
The big man lashed fiercely at the dogs, and as they screamed at his blows he laughed cruelly. They were straining forward in the harness, their bellies almost level with the ground, their muscles standing out like whalebone. Great, gaunt brutes they were, with ribs like barrel-staves, and hip-bones sharp as stakes. Their woolly coats were white with frost, their sly, slit-eyed faces ice-sheathed, their feet torn so that they left a bloody track on the snow at every step.
"Mush on there, you curs, or I'll cut you in two," stormed the big man, and once again the heavy whip fell on the yelling pack. They were pulling for all they were worth, their heads down, their shoulders squared. Their breath came pantingly, their tongues gleamed redly, their white teeth shone. They were fighting, fighting for life, fighting to placate a cruel master in a world where all was cruelty and oppression.
For there in the Winter Wild pity was not even a name. It was the struggle for life, desperate and never-ending. The Wild abhorred life, abhorred most of all these atoms of heat and hurry in the midst of her triumphant stillness. The Wild would crush those defiant pigmies that disputed the majesty of her invincible calm.
A dog was hanging back in the harness. It whined; then as the husky following snapped at it savagely, it gave a lurch and fell. The big man shot forward with a sudden fury in his eyes. Swinging the heavy-thonged whip, again and again he brought it down on the writhing brute. Then he twisted the thong around his hand and belaboured its hollow ribs with the butt. It screamed for a while, but soon it ceased to scream; it only moaned a little. With glistening fangs and ears up-pricked the other dogs looked at their fallen comrade. They longed to leap on it, to rend its gaunt limbs apart, to tear its quivering flesh; but there was the big man with his murderous whip, and they cowered before him.
The big man kicked the fallen dog repeatedly. The little man paused in his painful progress to look on apathetically.
"You'll stave in its ribs," he remarked presently; "and then we'll never make timber by nightfall."
The big man had failed in his efforts to rouse the dog. There in that lancinating cold, in an ecstasy of rage, despairfully he poised over it.
"Who told you to put in your lip?" he snarled. "Who's running this show, you or I? I'll stave in its ribs if I choose, and I'll hitch you to the sled and make you pull your guts out, too."
The little man said no more. Then, the dog still refusing to rise, the big man leapt over the harness and came down on the animal with both feet. There was a scream of pitiful agony, and the snap of breaking bones. But the big man slipped and fell. Down he came, and like a flash the whole pack piled onto him.
For a moment there was a confused muddle of dogs and master. This was the time for which they had waited, these savage semi-wolves. This man had beaten them, had starved them, had been a devil to them, and now he was down and at their mercy. Ferociously they sprang on him, and their white fangs snapped like traps in his face. They fought to get at his throat. They tore at his parka. Oh, if they could only make their teeth meet in his warm flesh! But no; they were all tangled up in the harness, and the man was fighting like a giant. He had the leader by the throat and was using her as a shield against the others. His right hand swung the whip with flail-like blows. Foiled and confused the dogs fell to fighting among themselves, and triumphantly the man leapt to his feet.
He was like a fiend now. Fiercely he raged among the snarling pack, kicking, clubbing, cursing, till one and all he had them beaten into cowering subjection.
He was still panting from his struggle. His face was deathly pale, and his eyes were glittering. He strode up to the little man, who had watched the performance stolidly.
"Why didn't you help me, you dirty little whelp?" he hissed. "You wanted to see them chew me up; you know you did. You'd like to have them rip me to ribbons. You wouldn't move a finger to save me. Oh, I know, I know. I've had enough of you this trip to last me a lifetime. You've bucked me right along. Now, blast your dirty little soul, I hate you, and for the rest of the way I'm going to make your life hell. See! Now I'll begin."
The little man was afraid. He seemed to grow smaller, while over him towered the other, dark, fierce and malignant. The little man was desperate. Defensively he crouched, yet the next instant he was overthrown. Then, as he lay sprawling in the snow, the big man fell to lashing him with the whip. Time after time he struck, till the screams of his victim became one long, drawn-out wail of agony. Then he desisted. Jerking the other on his feet once more, he bade him go on breaking trail.
Again they struggled on. The light was beginning to fail, and there was no thought in their minds but to reach that dark belt of timber before darkness came. There was no sound but the crunch of their snowshoes, the panting of the dogs, the rasping of the sleigh. When they paused the silence seemed to fall on them like a blanket. There was something awful in the quality of this deathly silence. It was as if something material, something tangible, hovered over them, closed in on them, choked them, throttled them. It was almost like a Presence.
Weary and worn were men and dogs as they struggled onwards in the growing gloom, but because of the feeling in his heart the little man no longer was conscious of bodily pain. It was black murder that raged there.
With straining sinews and bones that cracked, the dogs bent to a heavy pull, while at the least sign of shirking down swished the relentless whip. And the big man, as if proud of his strength, gazed insolently round on the Wild. He was at home in this land, this stark wolf-land, so callous, so cruel. Was he not cruel, too? Surely this land cowered before him. Its hardships could not daunt him, nor its terrors dismay. As he urged on his bloody-footed dogs, he exulted greatly. Of all Men of the High North was he not king?
At last they reached the forest fringe, and after a few harsh directions he had the little man making camp. The little man worked with a strange willingness. All his taciturnity had gone. As he gathered the firewood and filled the Yukon stove, he hummed a merry air. He had the water boiling and soon there was the fragrance of tea in the little tent. He produced sourdough bread (which he fried in bacon fat), and some dried moose-meat.
To men of the trail this was a treat. They ate ravenously, but they did not speak. Yet the little man was oddly cheerful. Time and again the big man looked at him suspiciously. Outside it was a steely night, with an icicle of a moon. The cold leapt on one savagely. To step from the tent was like plunging into icy water, yet within those canvas walls the men were warm and snug. The stove crackled its cheer. A grease-light sputtered, and by its rays the little man was mending his ice-stiffened moccasins. He hummed an Irish air, and he seemed to be tickled with some thought he had.
"Stop that tune," growled the other. "If you don't know anything else, cut it out. I'm sick of it."
The little man shut up meekly. Again there was silence, broken by a whining and a scratching outside. It was the five dogs crying for their supper, crying for the frozen fish they had earned so well. They wondered why it was not forthcoming. When they received it they would lie on it, to warm it with the heat of their bodies, and then gnaw off the thawed portions. They were very wise, these dogs. But to-night there was no fish, and they whined for it.
"Dog feed all gone?"
"Yep," said the small man.
"Hell! I'll silence these brutes anyway."
He went to the door and laid onto them so that they slunk away into the shadows. But they did not bury themselves in the snow and sleep. They continued to prowl round the tent, hunger-mad and desperate.
"We've only got enough grub left for ourselves now," said the big man; "and none too much at that. I guess I'll put you on half-rations."
He laughed as if it was the hugest joke. Then rolling himself in a robe, he lay down and slept.
The little man did not sleep. He was still turning over the thought that had come to him. Outside in the atrocious cold the whining malamutes crept nearer and nearer. Savage were they, Indian raised and sired by a wolf. And now, in the agonies of hunger, they cried for fish, and there was none for them, only kicks and curses. Oh, it was a world of ghastly cruelty! They howled their woes to the weary moon.
"Short rations, indeed," mumbled the little man. He crawled into his sleeping bag, but he did not close his eyes. He was watching.
About dawn he rose. An evil dawn it was, sallow, sinister and askew.
The little man selected the heavy-handled whip for the job. Carefully he felt its butt, then he struck. It was a shrewd blow and a neatly delivered, for the little man had been in the business before. It fell on the big man's head, and he crumpled up. Then the little man took some rawhide thongs and trussed up his victim. There lay the big man, bound and helpless, with a clotted blood-hole in his black hair.
Then the little man gathered up the rest of the provisions. He looked around carefully, as if fearful of leaving anything behind. He made a pack of the food and lashed it on his back. Now he was ready to start. He knew that within fifty miles, travelling to the south, he would strike a settlement. He was safe.
He turned to where lay the unconscious body of his partner. Again and again he kicked it; he cursed it; he spat on it. Then, after a final look of gloating hate, he went off and left the big man to his fate.
At last, at long last, the Worm had turned.
The dogs! The dogs were closing in. Nearer and nearer they drew, headed by a fierce Mackenzie River bitch. They wondered why their master did not wake; they wondered why the little tent was so still; why no plume of smoke rose from the slim stovepipe. All was oddly quiet and lifeless. No curses greeted them; no whiplash cut into them; no strong arm jerked them over the harness. Perhaps it was a primordial instinct that drew them on, that made them strangely bold. Perhaps it was only the despair of their hunger, the ache of empty bellies. Closer and closer they crept to the silent tent.
Locasto opened his eyes. Within a foot of his face were the fangs of a malamute. At his slight movement it drew back with a snarl, and retreated to the door. Locasto could see the other dogs crouching and eyeing him fixedly. What could be the matter? What had gotten into the brutes? Where was the Worm? Where were the provisions? Why was the tent flap open and the stove stone-cold? Then with a dawning comprehension that he had been deserted, Locasto uttered a curse and tried to rise.
At first he thought he was stiff with cold, but a downward glance showed him his condition. He was helpless. He grew sick at the pit of his stomach, and glared at the dogs. They were drawing in on him. They seemed to bulk suddenly, to grow huge and menacing. Their gleaming teeth snapped in his face. He could fancy these teeth stripping the flesh from his body, gnawing at his bones with drooling jaws. Violently he shuddered. He must try to free himself, so that at least he could fight.
Grimly the Worm had done his work, but he had hardly reckoned on the strength of this man. With a vast throe of fear Locasto tried to free himself. Tenser, tenser grew the thongs; they strained, they bit into his flesh, but they would not break. Yet as he relaxed it seemed to him they were less tight. Then he rested for another effort.
Once again the gaunt, grey bitch was crawling up. He remembered how often he had starved it, clubbed it until it could barely stand. Now it was going to get even. It would snap at his throat, rip out his windpipe, bury its fangs in his bleeding flesh. He cursed it in the old way. With a spring it backed out again and stood with the others. He made another giant effort. Once again he felt the thongs strain and strain; then, when he ceased, he imagined they were still looser.
The dogs seemed to have lost all fear. They stood in a circle within a few feet of him, regarding him intently. They smelled the blood on his head, and a slaver ran from their jaws. Again he cursed them, but this time they did not move. They seemed to realise he could not harm them. With their evilly-slanted eyes they watched his struggles. Strange, wise, uncanny brutes, they were biding their time, waiting to rush in on him, to rend him.
Again he tried to get free. Now he fancied he could move his arm a little. He must hurry, for every instant the malamutes were growing bolder. Another strain and a wrench. Ha! he was able to squeeze his right arm from under the rawhide.
He felt the foul breath of the dogs on his face, and quickly he struck at them. They jumped back, then, as if at a signal, they sprang in again. There was no time to lose. They were attacking him in earnest. Quickly he wrenched out his other arm. He was just in time, for the dogs were upon him.
He struggled to his knees and shielded his head with his arms. Wildly he swung at the nearest dog. Full on the face he struck it, and it shot back as if hit by a bullet. But the others were on him. They had him down, snarling and ripping, a mad ferment of fury. Two of them were making for his face. As he lay on his back he gripped each by the throat. His hands were torn and bleeding, but he had them fast. In his grip of steel they struggled to free themselves in vain. They backed, they writhed, they twisted in a bow. With his huge hands he was choking them, choking them to death, using them as a shield against the other three. Then slowly he worked himself into a sitting position. He hurled one of the dogs to the tent door. He swung bludgeon blows at the others. They fled yelping and howling. He still held the Mackenzie River bitch. Getting his knee on her body, he bent her almost into a circle, bent her till her back broke with a snap.
Then he rose and freed himself from the remaining thongs. He was torn and cut and bleeding, but he had triumphed.
"Oh, the devil!" he growled, grinding his teeth. "He would have me chewed to rags by malamutes."
He stared around.
"He's taken everything, the scum! left me to starve. Ha! one thing he's forgotten—the matches. At least I can keep warm."
He picked up the canister of matches and relit the stove.
"I'll kill him for this," he muttered. "Night and day I'll follow him. I'll camp on his trail till I find him. Then—I'll torture him; I'll strip him and leave him naked in the snow."
He slipped into his snowshoes, gave a last look around to see that no food had been left, and with a final growl of fury he started in pursuit.
Ahead of him, ploughing their way through the virgin snow, he could see the dragging track of the long snowshoes. He examined it, and noted that it was sharp and crisp at the edges.
"He's got a good five hours' start of me! Travelling fast, too, by the length of the track."
He had a thought of capturing the dogs and hitching them up; but, thoroughly terrified, they had retreated into the woods. To overtake this man, to glut his lust for revenge, he must depend on his own strength and endurance.
"Now, Jack Locasto," he told himself grimly, "you've got a fight on your hands, such a fight as you never had before. Get right down to it."
So, with head bowed and shoulders sloping forward, he darted on the track of the Worm.
"He's got to break trail, the viper! and that's where I score. I can make twice the time. Oh, just wait, you little devil! just wait!"
He ground his teeth vindictively, and put an inch more onto his stride. He was descending a long, open valley that seemed from its trackless snows to have been immemorially life-shunned and accursed. Black, witch-like pines sentinelled its flanks, and accentuated its desolation. And over all there was the silence of the Wild, that double-strong solution of silence from which all other silences are distilled, and spread out. Yet, as he gazed around him in this everlasting solitude, there was no fear in his heart.
"I can fight this accursed land and beat it out every time," he exulted. "It can't get any the better of me."
It was cold, so cold that it was difficult to imagine it could ever be warm again. To expose flesh was to feel instantly the sharp sting that heralds frostbite. As he ran, the sharp intake of icy air made his lungs seem to contract. His eyes smarted and tingled. The lashes froze closely. Ice formed in his nostrils and his nose began to bleed. He pulled up a moment.
"Curse this infernal country!"
He had not eaten and the icy air begot a ravenous hunger. He dreamed of food, but chiefly of bacon, fat, greasy bacon. How glorious it would be just to eat of it, raw, tallow bacon! He had nothing to eat. He would have nothing till he had overtaken the Worm. On! On!
He came to where the Worm had made a camp. There were the ashes of a fire.
"Curse him; he's got some matches after all," he said with bitter chagrin. Eagerly he searched all around in the snow to see if he could not find even a crumb of food. There was nothing. He pushed on. Night fell and he was forced to make camp.
Oh, he was hungry! The night was vastly resplendent, a spendthrift night scattering everywhere its largess of stars. The cold had a crystalline quality and the trees detonated strangely in the silence. He built a huge fire: that at least he could have, and through eighteen hours of darkness he crouched by it, afraid to sleep for fear of freezing.
"If I only had a tin to boil water in," he muttered; "there's lots of reindeer moss, and I could stew some of my mucklucks. Ah! I'll try and roast a bit of them."
He cut a strip from the Indian boots he was wearing, and held it over the fire. The hair singed away and the corners crisped and charred. He put it in his mouth. It was pleasantly warm, but even his strong teeth refused to meet in it. However, he tore it into smaller pieces, and bolted them.
At last the dawn came, that evil, sneaking, corpse-like dawn, and Locasto flung himself once more on the trail. He was not feeling so fit now. Hunger and loss of blood had weakened him so that his stride insensibly shortened, and his step had lost its spring. However, he plodded on doggedly, an incarnation of vengeance and hate. Again he examined the snowshoe trail ever stretching in front, and noticed how crisped and hard was its edge. He was not making the time he had reckoned on. The Worm must be a long way ahead.
Still he did not despair. The little man might rest a day, or oversleep, or strain a sinew, then— Locasto pictured with gloating joy the terror of the Worm as he awoke to find himself overtaken. Oh, the snake! the vermin! On! On!
Beyond a doubt he was growing weaker. Once or twice he stumbled, and the last time he lay a few moments before rising. He wanted to rest badly. The cold was keener than ever; it was merciless; it was excruciating. He no longer had the vitality to withstand it. It stabbed and stung him whenever he exposed bare flesh. He pulled the parka hood very close, so that only his eyes peered out. So he moved through the desolation of the Arctic Wild, a dark, muffled figure, a demon of vengeance, fierce and menacing.
He stood on a vast, still plateau. The sky was like a great grotto of ice. The land lay in a wan apathy of suffering, dumb, hopeless, drear. Icy land and icy sky met in a trap, a trap that held him fast; and over all, vast, titanic, terrible, the Spirit of the Wild seemed to brood. It laughed at him, a laugh of derision, of mockery, of callous gloating triumph. Locasto shuddered. Then night came and he built another giant fire.
Again he bolted down some roasted muckluck. Overhead the stars glittered vindictively. They were green and blue and red, and they had spiny rays like starfish on which they danced. This night he had to make tremendous efforts to keep from sleeping. Several times he drowsed forward, and almost fell into the fire. As he crouched there his beard was singeing and his face scorched, but his back seemed as if it was cased in ice. Often he would turn and warm it at the fire, but not for long. He hated to face the terror of the silence and the dark, the shadow where waited Death. Better the crackling cheer of the spruce flame.
At dawn the sky was leaden and the cold less despotic. Stretching interminably ahead was that lonely snowshoe trail. Locasto was puzzled.
"Where in creation is the little devil going to, anyway?" he said, knitting his brows. "I figured he'd make direct for Dawson, but he's either changed his mind or got a wrong steer. By Heavens, that's it—the little varmint's lost his way."
Locasto had an Indian's unerring sense of location.
"I guess I can't afford to follow him any more," he reflected. "I've gone too far already. I'm all petered out. I'll have to let him go in the meantime. It's save yourself, Jack Locasto, while there's yet time. Me for Dawson."
He struck off almost at right angles to the trail he had been following, over a low range of hills. It was evil going, and as he broke through the snow-crust mile after wearing mile, he felt himself grow weaker and weaker. "Buck up, old man," he adjured himself fiercely. "You've got to fight, fight."
There was a strange stillness in the air, not the natural stillness of the Wild, but an unhealthy one, as of a suspension of something, of a vacuum, of bated breath. It was curiously full of terror. More and more he felt like a trapped animal, caught in a vast cage. The sky to the north was glooming ominously. Every second the horizon grew blacker, more bodeful, and Locasto stared at it, with a sudden quake at his heart.
"Blizzard, by thunder!" he gasped.
Was that a breath of wind that stung his cheek? Was it a snowflake that drifted along with it? Denser and denser grew the gloom, and now there was a roaring as of a great wind. King Blizzard was come.
"I guess I'm done for," he hissed through clenched teeth. "But I'll fight to the finish. I'll die game."
It was on him now with a swoop and a roar. He was in the thick of a mud-grey darkness, a bitter, blank darkness full of whirling wind-eddies and vast flurries of snow. He could not see more than a few feet before him. The stinging flakes blinded him; the coal-black night engulfed him. In that seething turmoil of the elements he was as helpless as a child.
"I guess you're on your last trail, Jack Locasto," he muttered grimly.
Nevertheless he lowered his head and butted desperately into the heart of the storm. He was very faint from lack of food, but despair had given him a new strength, and he plunged through drift and flurry with the fury of a goaded bull.
The night had fallen black as the pit. He was in an immensity of darkness, a darkness that packed close up to him, and hugged him, and enfolded him like a blanket. And in the black void winds were raging with an insane fury, whirling aloft mountains of snow and hurling them along plain and valley. The forests shrieked in fear; the creatures of the Wild cowered in their lairs, but the solitary man stumbled on and on. As if by magic barriers of snow piled up before him, and almost to his shoulders he floundered through them. The wind had a hatchet edge that pierced his clothes and hacked him viciously. He knew his only plan was to keep moving, to stumble, stagger on. It was a fight for life.
He had forgotten his hunger. Those wild visions of gluttony had gone from him. He had forgotten his thirst for revenge, forgotten everything but his own dire peril.
"Keep moving, keep moving for God's sake," he urged himself hoarsely. "You'll freeze if you let up a moment. Don't let up, don't!"
But oh, how hard it was not to rest! Every muscle in his body seemed to beg and pray for rest, yet the spirit in him drove them to work anew. He was making a certain mad headway, travelling, always travelling. He doubted not he was doomed, but instinct made him fight on as long as an atom of strength remained.
He floundered to his armpits in a snowdrift. He struggled out and staggered on once more. In the mad buffoonery of that cutting wind he scarce could stand upright. His parka was frozen stiff as a board. He could feel his hands grow numb in his mits. From his fingers the icy cold crept up and up. Long since he had lost all sensation in his feet. From the ankles down they were like wooden clogs. He had an idea they were frozen. He lifted them, and watched them sink and disappear in the clinging snow. He beat his numb hands against his breast. It was of no use—he could not get back the feeling in them. A craving to lie down in the snow assailed him.
Life was so sweet. He had visions of cities, of banquets, of theatres, of glittering triumphs, of glorious excitements, of women he had loved, conquered and thrown aside. Never again would he see that world. He would die here, and they would find him rigid and brittle, frozen so hard they would have to thaw him out before they buried him. He fancied he saw himself frozen in a grotesque position. There would be ice-crystals in the very centre of his heart, that heart that had glowed so fiercely with the lust of life. Yes, life was sweet. A vast self-pity surged over him. Well, he had done his best; he could struggle no more.
But struggle he did, another hour, two hours, three hours. Where was he going? Maybe round in a circle. He was like an automaton now. He did not think any more, he just kept moving. His feet clumped up and down. He lifted himself out of snowpits; he staggered a few steps, fell, crawled on all fours in the darkness, then in a lull of the furious wind rose once more to his feet. The night was abysmal; closer and closer it hugged him. The wind was charging him from all points, baffling him like a merry monster, beating him down. The snow whirled around him in a narrow eddy, and he tried to grope out of it and failed. Oh, he was tired, tired!
He must give up. It was too bad. He was so strong, and capable of so much for good or bad. Alas! it had been all for bad. Oh, if he had but another chance he might make his life tell a different tale! Well, he wasn't going to whine or cower. He would die game.
His feet were frozen; his arms were frozen. Here he would lie down and—quit. It would soon be over, and it was a pleasant death, they said. One more look he gave through the writhing horror of the darkness; one more look before he closed his eyes to the horror of the Greater Darkness....
Ha! what was that? He fancied he saw a dim glow just ahead. It could not be. It was one of those cheating dreams that came to a dying man, an illusion, a mockery. He closed his eyes. Then he opened them again—the glow was still there.
Surely it must be real! It was steady. As he fell forward it seemed to grow more bright. On hands and knees he crawled to it. Brighter and brighter it grew. It was but a few feet away. Oh, God! could it be?
Then there was a lull in the storm, and with a final plunge Locasto fell forward, fell towards a lamp lighted in a window, fell against the closed door of a little cabin.
The Worm suffered acutely from the intense cold. He cursed it in his prolific and exhaustive way. He cursed the leaden weight of his snowshoes, and the thongs that chafed his feet. He cursed the pack he carried on his back, which momently grew heavier. He cursed the country; then, after a general debauch of obscenity, he decided it was time to feed.
He gathered some dry twigs and built a fire on the snow. He hurried, for the freezing process was going on in his carcase, and he was afraid. It was all ready. Now to light it—the matches.
Where in hell were the matches? Surely he could not have left them at the camp. With feverish haste he overturned his pack. No, they were not there. Could he have dropped them on the trail? He had a wild idea of going back. Then he thought of Locasto lying in the tent. He could never face that. But he must have a fire. He was freezing to death—right now. Already his fingers were tingling and stiffening.
Huh! maybe he had some matches in his pockets. No—yes, he had—one, two, three, four, five, that was all. Five slim sulphur matches, part of a block, and jammed in a corner of his waistcoat pocket. Eagerly he lit one. The twigs caught. The flame leapt up. Oh it was good! He had a fire, a fire.
He made tea, and ate some bread and meat. Then he felt his strength and courage return. He had four matches left. Four matches meant four fires. That would mean four more days' travel. By that time he would have reached the Dawson country.
That night he made a huge blaze, chopping down several trees and setting them alight. There, lying in his sleeping-bag, he rested well. In the early dawn he was afoot once more.
Was there ever such an atrocious soul-freezing cold! He cursed it with every breath he drew. At noon he felt a vast temptation to make another fire, but he refrained. Then that night he had bad luck, for one of his precious matches proved little more than a sliver tipped with the shadow of pink. In spite of his efforts it was abortive, and he was compelled to use another. He was down to his last match.
Well, he must travel extra hard. So next day in a panic of fear he covered a vast stretch of country. He must be getting near to one of the gold creeks. As he surmounted the crest of every ridge he expected to see the blue smoke of cabin fires, yet always was there the same empty desolation. Then night came and he prepared to camp.
Once more he chopped down some trees and piled them in a heap. He was very hungry, very cold, very tired. What a glorious blaze he would soon have! How gallantly the flames would leap and soar! He collected some dry moss and twigs. Never had he felt the cold so bitter. It was growing dusk. Above him the sky had a corpse-like glimmer, and on the snow strange bale-fires glinted. It was a weird, sardonic light that waited, keeping tryst with darkness.
He shuddered and his fingers trembled. Then ever so carefully he drew forth that most precious of things, the last match.
He must hurry; his fingers were tingling, freezing, stiffening fast. He would lie down on the snow, and strike it quickly.... "O God!"
From his numb fingers the slim little match had dropped. There it lay on the snow. Gingerly he picked it up, with a wild hope that it would be all right. He struck it, but it doubled up. Again he struck it: the head came off—he was lost.
He fell forward on his face. His hands were numb, dead. He lay supported by his elbows, his eyes gazing blankly at the unlit fire. Five minutes passed; he did not rise. He seemed dazed, stupid, terror-stricken. Five more minutes passed. He did not move. He seemed to stiffen, to grow rigid, and the darkness gathered around him.
A thought came to his mind that he would straighten out, so that when they found him he would be in good shape to fit in a coffin. He did not want them to break his legs and arms. Yes, he would straighten out. He tried—but he could not, so he let it go at that.
Over him the Wild seemed to laugh, a laugh of scorn, of mockery, of exquisite malice.
And there in fifteen minutes the cold slew him. When they found him he lay resting on his elbows and gazing with blank eyes of horror at his unlit fire.