The Trail of 98 (43 page)

"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 onlybut, 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!

"Berna, we must get married."

"Yes, dearest, whenever you wish."

"Well, to-morrow."

She smiled radiantly; then her face grew very serious.

"What will I wear?" she asked plaintively.

"Wear? Oh, anything. That white dress you've got onI never saw you looking
so sweet. You mind me of a picture I know of Saint Cecilia, the same delicacy of
feature, the same pure colouring, the same grace of expression."

"Foolish one!" she chided; but her voice was deliciously tender, and her eyes
were love-lit. And indeed, as she stood by the window holding her embroidery to
the failing light, you scarce could have imagined a girl more gracefully sweet.
In a fine mood of idealising, my eyes rested on her.

"Yes, fairy girl, that briar rose you are doing in the centre of your little
canvas hoop is not more delicate in the tinting than are your cheeks; your hands
that ply the needle so daintily are whiter than the May blossoms on its border;
those coils of shining hair that crown your head would shame the silk you use
for softness."

"Don't," she sighed; "you spoil me."

"Oh no, it's true, true. Sometimes I wish you
were not so lovely. It makes me care so much for you
thatit hurts. Sometimes I wish you were plain, then I would feel more sure of
you. Sometimes I fear, fear some one will steal you away from me."

"No, no," she cried; "no one ever will. There will never be any one but
you."

She came over to me, and knelt by my chair, putting her arms around me
prettily. The pure, sweet face looked up into mine.

"We have been happy here, haven't we, boy?" she asked.

"Exquisitely happy. Yet I have always been afraid."

"Of what, dearest?"

"I don't know. Somehow it seems too good to last."

"Well, to-morrow we'll be married."

"Yes, we should have done that a year ago. It's all been a mistake. It didn't
matter at first; nobody noticed, nobody cared. But now it's different. I can see
it by the way the wives of the men look at us. I wonder do women resent the fact
that virtue is only its own rewardthey are so down on those who stray. Well, we
don't care anyway. We'll marry and live our lives. But there are other
reasons."

"Yes?"