But he was safe. Toes and nose and cheeks would be only touched by the
frost, for the fire was beginning to burn with strength. He was feeding it
with twigs the size of his finger. In another minute he would be able to
feed it with branches the size of his wrist, and then he could remove his
wet foot-gear, and, while it dried, he could keep his naked feet warm by
the fire, rubbing them at first, of course, with snow. The fire was a
success. He was safe. He remembered the advice of the old-timer on
Sulphur Creek, and smiled. The old-timer had been very serious in laying
down the law that no man must travel alone in the Klondike after fifty
below. Well, here he was; he had had the accident; he was alone; and he
had saved himself. Those old-timers were rather womanish, some of them,
he thought. All a man had to do was to keep his head, and he was all right.
Any man who was a man could travel alone. But it was surprising, the
rapidity with which his cheeks and nose were freezing. And he had not
thought his fingers could go lifeless in so short a time. Lifeless they were,
for he could scarcely make them move together to grip a twig, and they
seemed remote from his body and from him. When he touched a twig, he
had to look and see whether or not he had hold of it. The wires were pretty
well down between him and his finger-ends.
All of which counted for little. There was the fire, snapping and crackling
and promising life with every dancing flame. He started to untie his
moccasins. They were coated with ice; the thick German socks were like
sheaths of iron halfway to the knees; and the moccasin strings were like
rods of steel all twisted and knotted as by some conflagration. For a
moment he tugged with his numb fingers, then, realizing the folly of it, he
drew his sheath-knife.
But before he could cut the strings, it happened. It was his own fault or,
rather, his mistake. He should not have built the fire under the spruce tree.
He should have built it in the open. But it had been easier to pull the twigs
from the brush and drop them directly on the fire. Now the tree under
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which he had done this carried a weight of snow on its boughs. No wind
had blown for weeks, and each bough was fully freighted. Each time he
had pulled a twig he had communicated a slight agitation to the tree — an
imperceptible agitation, so far as he was concerned, but an agitation
sufficient to bring about the disaster. High up in the tree one bough
capsized its load of snow. This fell on the boughs beneath, capsizing them.
This process continued, spreading out and involving the whole tree. It
grew like an avalanche, and it descended without warning upon the man
and the fire, and the fire was blotted out! Where it had burned was a
mantle of fresh and disordered snow.
The man was shocked. It was as though he had just heard his own
sentence of death. For a moment he sat and stared at the spot where the
fire had been. Then he grew very calm. Perhaps the old-timer on Sulphur
Creek was right. If he had only had a trail-mate he would have been in no
danger now. The trail-mate could have built the fire. Well, it was up to
him to build the fire over again, and this second time there must be no
failure. Even if he succeeded, he would most likely lose some toes. His
feet must be badly frozen by now, and there would be some time before
the second fire was ready.
Such were his thoughts, but he did not sit and think them. He was busy all
the time they were passing through his mind. He made a new foundation
for a fire, this time in the open, where no treacherous tree could blot it out.
Next, he gathered dry grasses and tiny twigs from the high-water flotsam.
He could not bring his fingers together to pull them out, but he was able to
gather them by the handful. In this way he got many rotten twigs and bits
of green moss that were undesirable, but it was the best he could do. He
worked methodically, even collecting an armful of the larger branches to
be used later when the fire gathered strength. And all the while the dog sat
and watched him, a certain yearning wistfulness in its eyes, for it looked
upon him as the fire-provider, and the fire was slow in coming.
When all was ready, the man reached in his pocket for a second piece of
birch-bark. He knew the bark was there, and, though he could not feel it
with his fingers, he could hear its crisp rustling as he fumbled for it. Try as
he would, he could not clutch hold of it. And all the time, in his
consciousness, was the knowledge that each instant his feet were freezing.
This thought tended to put him in a panic, but he fought against it and kept
calm. He pulled on his mittens with his teeth, and threshed his arms back
and forth, beating his hands with all his might against his sides. He did this
sitting down, and he stood up to do it; and all the while the dog sat in the
snow, its wolf-brush of a tail curled around warmly over its forefeet, its
sharp wolf-ears pricked forward intently as it watched the man. And the
man, as he beat and threshed with his arms and hands, felt a great surge of
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envy as he regarded the creature that was warm and secure in its natural
covering.
After a time he was aware of the first faraway signals of sensation in his
beaten fingers. The faint tingling grew stronger till it evolved into a
stinging ache that was excruciating, but which the man hailed with
satisfaction. He stripped the mitten from his right hand and fetched forth
the birch-bark. The exposed fingers were quickly going numb again. Next
he brought out his bunch of sulphur matches. But the tremendous cold had
already driven the life out of his fingers. In his effort to separate one
match from the others, the whole bunch fell in the snow. He tried to pick it
out of the snow, but failed. The dead fingers could neither touch nor
clutch. He was very careful. He drove the thought of his freezing feet, and
nose, and cheeks, out of his mind, devoting his whole soul to the matches.
He watched, using the sense of vision in place of that of touch, and when
he saw his fingers on each side the bunch, he closed them — that is, he
willed to close them, for the wires were down, and the fingers did not
obey. He pulled the mitten on the right hand, and beat it fiercely against
his knee. Then, with both mittened hands, he scooped the bunch of
matches, along with much snow, into his lap. Yet he was no better off.
After some manipulation he managed to get the bunch between the heels
of his mittened hands. In this fashion he carried it to his mouth. The ice
crackled and snapped when by a violent effort he opened his mouth. He
drew the lower jaw in, curled the upper lip out of the way, and scraped the
bunch with his upper teeth in order to separate a match. He succeeded in
getting one, which he dropped on his lap. He was no better off. He could
not pick it up. Then he devised a way. He picked it up in his teeth and
scratched it on his leg. Twenty times he scratched before he succeeded in
lighting it. As it flamed he held it with his teeth to the birch-bark. But the
burning brimstone went up his nostrils and into his lungs, causing him to
cough spasmodically. The match fell into the snow and went out.
The old-timer on Sulphur Creek was right, he thought in the moment of
controlled despair that ensued: after fifty below, a man should travel with
a partner. He beat his hands, but failed in exciting any sensation. Suddenly
he bared both hands, removing the mittens with his teeth. He caught the
whole bunch between the heels of his hands. His arm-muscles not being
frozen enabled him to press the hand-heels tightly against the matches.
Then he scratched the bunch along his leg. It flared into flame, seventy
sulphur matches at once! There was no wind to blow them out. He kept his
head to one side to escape the strangling fumes, and held the blazing
bunch to the birch-bark. As he so held it, he became aware of sensation in