A thousand deaths by Jack London

new, and steadily the distance between them was increasing. He

sprang about excitedly, making short nervous leaps and twists, now

toward one, now toward the other, in painful indecision, not

knowing his own mind, desiring both and unable to choose, uttering

quick sharp whines and beginning to pant.

He sat down abruptly on his haunches, thrusting his nose upward,

the mouth opening and closing with jerking movements, each time

opening wider. These jerking movements were in unison with the

recurrent spasms that attacked the throat, each spasm severer and

more intense than the preceding one. And in accord with jerks and

spasms the larynx began to vibrate, at first silently, accompanied

by the rush of air expelled from the lungs, then sounding a low,

deep note, the lowest in the register of the human ear. All this

was the nervous and muscular preliminary to howling.

But just as the howl was on the verge of bursting from the full

throat, the wide-opened mouth was closed, the paroxysms ceased, and

he looked long and steadily at the retreating man. Suddenly Wolf

turned his head, and over his shoulder just as steadily regarded

Walt. The appeal was unanswered. Not a word nor a sign did the

dog receive, no suggestion and no clew as to what his conduct

should be.

A glance ahead to where the old master was nearing the curve of the

trail excited him again. He sprang to his feet with a whine, and

then, struck by a new idea, turned his attention to Madge.

Hitherto he had ignored her, but now, both masters failing him, she

alone was left. He went over to her and snuggled his head in her

lap, nudging her arm with his nose – an old trick of his when

begging for favors. He backed away from her and began writhing and

twisting playfully, curvetting and prancing, half rearing and

striking his fore paws to the earth, struggling with all his body,

from the wheedling eyes and flattening ears to the wagging tail, to

express the thought that was in him and that was denied him

utterance.

This, too, he soon abandoned. He was depressed by the coldness of

these humans who had never been cold before. No response could he

draw from them, no help could he get. They did not consider him.

They were as dead.

He turned and silently gazed after the old master. Skiff Miller

was rounding the curve. In a moment he would be gone from view.

Yet he never turned his head, plodding straight onward, slowly and

methodically, as though possessed of no interest in what was

occurring behind his back.

And in this fashion he went out of view. Wolf waited for him to

reappear. He waited a long minute, silently, quietly, without

movement, as though turned to stone – withal stone quick with

eagerness and desire. He barked once, and waited. Then he turned

and trotted back to Walt Irvine. He sniffed his hand and dropped

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74

down heavily at his feet, watching the trail where it curved

emptily from view.

The tiny stream slipping down the mossy-lipped stone seemed

suddenly to increase the volume of its gurgling noise. Save for

the meadow-larks, there was no other sound. The great yellow

butterflies drifted silently through the sunshine and lost

themselves in the drowsy shadows. Madge gazed triumphantly at her

husband.

A few minutes later Wolf got upon his feet. Decision and

deliberation marked his movements. He did not glance at the man

and woman. His eyes were fixed up the trail. He had made up his

mind. They knew it. And they knew, so far as they were concerned,

that the ordeal had just begun.

He broke into a trot, and Madge’s lips pursed, forming an avenue

for the caressing sound that it was the will of her to send forth.

But the caressing sound was not made. She was impelled to look at

her husband, and she saw the sternness with which he watched her.

The pursed lips relaxed, and she sighed inaudibly.

Wolf’s trot broke into a run. Wider and wider were the leaps he

made. Not once did he turn his head, his wolf’s brush standing out

straight behind him. He cut sharply across the curve of the trail

and was gone.

THE SUN-DOG TRAIL

SITKA CHARLEY smoked his pipe and gazed thoughtfully at the POLICE

GAZETTE illustration on the wall. For half an hour he had been

steadily regarding it, and for half an hour I had been slyly

watching him. Something was going on in that mind of his, and,

whatever it was, I knew it was well worth knowing. He had lived

life, and seen things, and performed that prodigy of prodigies,

namely, the turning of his back upon his own people, and, in so far

as it was possible for an Indian, becoming a white man even in his

mental processes. As he phrased it himself, he had come into the

warm, sat among us, by our fires, and become one of us. He had

never learned to read nor write, but his vocabulary was remarkable,

and more remarkable still was the completeness with which he had

assumed the white man’s point of view, the white man’s attitude

toward things.

We had struck this deserted cabin after a hard day on trail. The

dogs had been fed, the supper dishes washed, the beds made, and we

were now enjoying that most delicious hour that comes each day, and

but once each day, on the Alaskan trail, the hour when nothing

intervenes between the tired body and bed save the smoking of the

evening pipe. Some former denizen of the cabin had decorated its

walls with illustrations torn from magazines and newspapers, and it

was these illustrations that had held Sitka Charley’s attention

from the moment of our arrival two hours before. He had studied

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75

them intently, ranging from one to another and back again, and I

could see that there was uncertainty in his mind, and bepuzzlement.

“Well?” I finally broke the silence.

He took the pipe from his mouth and said simply, “I do not

understand.”

He smoked on again, and again removed the pipe, using it to point

at the POLICE GAZETTE illustration.

“That picture – what does it mean? I do not understand.”

I looked at the picture. A man, with a preposterously wicked face,

his right hand pressed dramatically to his heart, was falling

backward to the floor. Confronting him, with a face that was a

composite of destroying angel and Adonis, was a man holding a

smoking revolver.

“One man is killing the other man,” I said, aware of a distinct

bepuzzlement of my own and of failure to explain.

“Why?” asked Sitka Charley.

“I do not know,” I confessed.

“That picture is all end,” he said. “It has no beginning.”

“It is life,” I said.

“Life has beginning,” he objected.

I was silenced for the moment, while his eyes wandered on to an

adjoining decoration, a photographic reproduction of somebody’s

“Leda and the Swan.”

“That picture,” he said, “has no beginning. It has no end. I do

not understand pictures.”

“Look at that picture,” I commanded, pointing to a third

decoration. “It means something. Tell me what it means to you.”

He studied it for several minutes.

“The little girl is sick,” he said finally. “That is the doctor

looking at her. They have been up all night – see, the oil is low

in the lamp, the first morning light is coming in at the window.

It is a great sickness; maybe she will die, that is why the doctor

looks so hard. That is the mother. It is a great sickness,

because the mother’s head is on the table and she is crying.”

“How do you know she is crying?” I interrupted. “You cannot see

her face. Perhaps she is asleep.”

Sitka Charley looked at me in swift surprise, then back at the

picture. It was evident that he had not reasoned the impression.

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76

“Perhaps she is asleep,” he repeated. He studied it closely. “No,

she is not asleep. The shoulders show that she is not asleep. I

have seen the shoulders of a woman who cried. The mother is

crying. It is a very great sickness.”

“And now you understand the picture,” I cried.

He shook his head, and asked, “The little girl – does it die?”

It was my turn for silence.

“Does it die?” he reiterated. “You are a painter-man. Maybe you

know.”

“No, I do not know,” I confessed.

“It is not life,” he delivered himself dogmatically. “In life

little girl die or get well. Something happen in life. In picture

nothing happen. No, I do not understand pictures.”

His disappointment was patent. It was his desire to understand all

things that white men understand, and here, in this matter, he