A thousand deaths by Jack London

swears like hell. Never have I heard a man swear like that man. I

am glad. Now that they have found that for which they look, we

will have rest. But the woman says, ‘Let us start. Hurry!’

“I am surprised. But the man with the one eye says, ‘Never mind

me. Give me your grub. You will get more grub at McKeon’s cabin

to-morrow. Send McKeon back for me. But do you go on.’ Here is

another wolf, an old wolf, and he, too, thinks but the one thought,

to go on. So we give him our grub, which is not much, and we chop

wood for his fire, and we take his strongest dogs and go on. We

left the man with one eye there in the snow, and he died there in

the snow, for McKeon never went back for him. And who that man

was, and why he came to be there, I do not know. But I think he

was greatly paid by the man and the woman, like me, to do their

work for them.

“That day and that night we had nothing to eat, and all next day we

travelled fast, and we were weak with hunger. Then we came to the

Black Rock, which rose five hundred feet above the trail. It was

at the end of the day. Darkness was coming, and we could not find

the cabin of McKeon. We slept hungry, and in the morning looked

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84

for the cabin. It was not there, which was a strange thing, for

everybody knew that McKeon lived in a cabin at Black Rock. We were

near to the coast, where the wind blows hard and there is much

snow. Everywhere there were small hills of snow where the wind had

piled it up. I have a thought, and I dig in one and another of the

hills of snow. Soon I find the walls of the cabin, and I dig down

to the door. I go inside. McKeon is dead. Maybe two or three

weeks he is dead. A sickness had come upon him so that he could

not leave the cabin. The wind and the snow had covered the cabin.

He had eaten his grub and died. I looked for his cache, but there

was no grub in it.

“‘Let us go on,’ said the woman. Her eyes were hungry, and her

hand was upon her heart, as with the hurt of something inside. She

bent back and forth like a tree in the wind as she stood there.

‘Yes, let us go on,’ said the man. His voice was hollow, like the

KLONK of an old raven, and he was hunger-mad. His eyes were like

live coals of fire, and as his body rocked to and fro, so rocked

his soul inside. And I, too, said, ‘Let us go on.’ For that one

thought, laid upon me like a lash for every mile of fifteen hundred

miles, had burned itself into my soul, and I think that I, too, was

mad. Besides, we could only go on, for there was no grub. And we

went on, giving no thought to the man with the one eye in the snow.

“There is little travel on the big cut-off. Sometimes two or three

months and nobody goes by. The snow had covered the trail, and

there was no sign that men had ever come or gone that way. All day

the wind blew and the snow fell, and all day we travelled, while

our stomachs gnawed their desire and our bodies grew weaker with

every step they took. Then the woman began to fall. Then the man.

I did not fall, but my feet were heavy and I caught my toes and

stumbled many times.

“That night is the end of February. I kill three ptarmigan with

the woman’s revolver, and we are made somewhat strong again. But

the dogs have nothing to eat. They try to eat their harness, which

is of leather and walrus-hide, and I must fight them off with a

club and hang all the harness in a tree. And all night they howl

and fight around that tree. But we do not mind. We sleep like

dead people, and in the morning get up like dead people out of

their graves and go on along the trail.

“That morning is the 1st of March, and on that morning I see the

first sign of that after which the baby wolves are in search. It

is clear weather, and cold. The sun stay longer in the sky, and

there are sun-dogs flashing on either side, and the air is bright

with frost-dust. The snow falls no more upon the trail, and I see

the fresh sign of dogs and sled. There is one man with that

outfit, and I see in the snow that he is not strong. He, too, has

not enough to eat. The young wolves see the fresh sign, too, and

they are much excited. ‘Hurry!’ they say. All the time they say,

‘Hurry! Faster, Charley, faster!’

“We make hurry very slow. All the time the man and the woman fall

down. When they try to ride on sled the dogs are too weak, and the

dogs fall down. Besides, it is so cold that if they ride on the

sled they will freeze. It is very easy for a hungry man to freeze.

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85

When the woman fall down, the man help her up. Sometimes the woman

help the man up. By and by both fall down and cannot get up, and I

must help them up all the time, else they will not get up and will

die there in the snow. This is very hard work, for I am greatly

weary, and as well I must drive the dogs, and the man and woman are

very heavy with no strength in their bodies. So, by and by, I,

too, fall down in the snow, and there is no one to help me up. I

must get up by myself. And always do I get up by myself, and help

them up, and make the dogs go on.

“That night I get one ptarmigan, and we are very hungry. And that

night the man says to me, ‘What time start to-morrow, Charley?’ It

is like the voice of a ghost. I say, ‘All the time you make start

at five o’clock.’ ‘To-morrow,’ he says, ‘we will start at three

o’clock.’ I laugh in great bitterness, and I say, ‘You are dead

man.’ And he says, ‘To-morrow we will start at three o’clock.’

“And we start at three o’clock, for I am their man, and that which

they say is to be done, I do. It is clear and cold, and there is

no wind. When daylight comes we can see a long way off. And it is

very quiet. We can hear no sound but the beat of our hearts, and

in the silence that is a very loud sound. We are like sleep-

walkers, and we walk in dreams until we fall down; and then we know

we must get up, and we see the trail once more and bear the beating

of our hearts. Sometimes, when I am walking in dreams this way, I

have strange thoughts. Why does Sitka Charley live? I ask myself.

Why does Sitka Charley work hard, and go hungry, and have all this

pain? For seven hundred and fifty dollars a month, I make the

answer, and I know it is a foolish answer. Also is it a true

answer. And after that never again do I care for money. For that

day a large wisdom came to me. There was a great light, and I saw

clear, and I knew that it was not for money that a man must live,

but for a happiness that no man can give, or buy, or sell, and that

is beyond all value of all money in the world.

“In the morning we come upon the last-night camp of the man who is

before us. It is a poor camp, the kind a man makes who is hungry

and without strength. On the snow there are pieces of blanket and

of canvas, and I know what has happened. His dogs have eaten their

harness, and he has made new harness out of his blankets. The man

and woman stare hard at what is to be seen, and as I look at them

my back feels the chill as of a cold wind against the skin. Their

eyes are toil-mad and hunger-mad, and burn like fire deep in their

heads. Their faces are like the faces of people who have died of

hunger, and their cheeks are black with the dead flesh of many

freezings. ‘Let us go on,’ says the man. But the woman coughs and