efforts to lick the ice off its legs, then dropped down in the snow and
began to bite out the ice that had formed between the toes. This was a
matter of instinct. To permit the ice to remain would mean sore feet. It did
not know this. It merely obeyed the mysterious prompting that arose from
the deep crypts of its being. But the man knew, having achieved a
judgment on the subject, and he removed the mitten from his right hand
and helped tear out the ice-particles. He did not expose his fingers more
than a minute, and was astonished at the swift numbness that smote them.
It certainly was cold. He pulled on the mitten hastily, and beat the hand
savagely across his chest.
At twelve o’clock the day was at its brightest. Yet the sun was too far
south on its winter journey to clear the horizon. The bulge of the earth
intervened between it and Henderson Creek, where the man walked under
a clear sky at noon and cast no shadow. At half-past twelve, to the minute,
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29
he arrived at the forks of the creek. He was pleased at the speed he had
made. If he kept it up, he would certainly be with the boys by six. He
unbuttoned his jacket and shirt and drew forth his lunch. The action
consumed no more than a quarter of a minute, yet in that brief moment the
numbness laid hold of the exposed fingers. He did not put the mitten on,
but, instead, struck the fingers a dozen sharp smashes against his leg. Then
he sat down on a snow-covered log to eat. The sting that followed upon
the striking of his fingers against his leg ceased so quickly that he was
startled. He had had no chance to take a bite of biscuit. He struck the
fingers repeatedly and returned them to the mitten, baring the other hand
for the purpose of eating. He tried to take a mouthful, but the ice-muzzle
prevented. He had forgotten to build a fire and thaw out. He chuckled at
his foolishness, and as he chuckled he noted the numbness creeping into
the exposed fingers. Also, he noted that the stinging which had first come
to his toes when he sat down was already passing away. He wondered
whether the toes were warm or numb. He moved them inside the
moccasins and decided that they were numb.
He pulled the mitten on hurriedly and stood up. He was a bit frightened.
He stamped up and down until the stinging returned into the feet. It
certainly was cold, was his thought. That man from Sulphur Creek had
spoken the truth when telling how cold it sometimes got in the country.
And he had laughed at him at the time! That showed one must not be too
sure of things. There was no mistake about it, it was cold. He strode up
and down, stamping his feet and threshing his arms, until reassured by the
returning warmth. Then he got out matches and proceeded to make a fire.
From the undergrowth, where high water of the previous spring had
lodged a supply of seasoned twigs, he got his fire-wood. Working
carefully from a small beginning, he soon had a roaring fire, over which
he thawed the ice from his face and in the protection of which he ate his
biscuits. For the moment the cold of space was outwitted. The dog took
satisfaction in the fire, stretching out close enough for warmth and far
enough away to escape being singed.
When the man had finished, he filled his pipe and took his comfortable
time over a smoke. Then he pulled on his mittens, settled the ear-flaps of
his cap firmly about his ears, and took the creek trail up the left fork. The
dog was disappointed and yearned back toward the fire. This man did not
know cold. Possibly all the generations of his ancestry had been ignorant
of cold, of real cold, of cold one hundred and seven degrees below
freezing-point. But the dog knew; all its ancestry knew, and it had
inherited the knowledge. And it knew that it was not good to walk abroad
in such fearful cold. It was the time to lie snug in a hole in the snow and
wait for a curtain of cloud to be drawn across the face of outer space
whence this cold came. On the other hand, there was no keen intimacy
between the dog and the man. The one was the toil-slave of the other, and
LOST FACE
30
the only caresses it had ever received were the caresses of the whip-lash
and of harsh and menacing throat-sounds that threatened the whip-lash. So
the dog made no effort to communicate its apprehension to the man. It was
not concerned in the welfare of the man; it was for its own sake that it
yearned back toward the fire. But the man whistled, and spoke to it with
the sound of whip-lashes, and the dog swung in at the man’s heels and
followed after.
The man took a chew of tobacco and proceeded to start a new amber
beard. Also, his moist breath quickly powdered with white his mustache,
eyebrows, and lashes. There did not seem to be so many springs on the left
fork of the Henderson, and for half an hour the man saw no signs of any.
And then it happened. At a place where there were no signs, where the
soft, unbroken snow seemed to advertise solidity beneath, the man broke
through. It was not deep. He wet himself halfway to the knees before he
floundered out to the firm crust.
He was angry, and cursed his luck aloud. He had hoped to get into camp
with the boys at six o’clock, and this would delay him an hour, for he
would have to build a fire and dry out his foot-gear. This was imperative
at that low temperature — he knew that much; and he turned aside to the
bank, which he climbed. On top, tangled in the underbrush about the
trunks of several small spruce trees, was a high-water deposit of dry firewood
— sticks and twigs, principally, but also larger portions of seasoned
branches and fine, dry, last-year’s grasses. He threw down several large
pieces on top of the snow. This served for a foundation and prevented the
young flame from drowning itself in the snow it otherwise would melt.
The flame he got by touching a match to a small shred of birch-bark that
he took from his pocket. This burned even more readily than paper.
Placing it on the foundation, he fed the young flame with wisps of dry
grass and with the tiniest dry twigs.
He worked slowly and carefully, keenly aware of his danger. Gradually, as
the flame grew stronger, he increased the size of the twigs with which he
fed it. He squatted in the snow, pulling the twigs out from their
entanglement in the brush and feeding directly to the flame. He knew there
must be no failure. When it is seventy-five below zero, a man must not fail
in his first attempt to build a fire — that is, if his feet are wet. If his feet are
dry, and he fails, he can run along the trail for half a mile and restore his
circulation. But the circulation of wet and freezing feet cannot be restored
by running when it is seventy-five below. No matter how fast he runs, the
wet feet will freeze the harder.
All this the man knew. The old-timer on Sulphur Creek had told him about
it the previous fall, and now he was appreciating the advice. Already all
sensation had gone out of his feet. To build the fire he had been forced to
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31
remove his mittens, and the fingers had quickly gone numb. His pace of
four miles an hour had kept his heart pumping blood to the surface of his
body and to all the extremities. But the instant he stopped, the action of the
pump eased down. The cold of space smote the unprotected tip of the
planet, and he, being on that unprotected tip, received the full force of the
blow. The blood of his body recoiled before it. The blood was alive, like
the dog, and like the dog it wanted to hide away and cover itself up from
the fearful cold. So long as he walked four miles an hour, he pumped that
blood, willy-nilly, to the surface; but now it ebbed away and sank down
into the recesses of his body. The extremities were the first to feel its
absence. His wet feet froze the faster, and his exposed fingers numbed the
faster, though they had not yet begun to freeze. Nose and cheeks were
already freezing, while the skin of all his body chilled as it lost its blood.