A thousand deaths by Jack London

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