A thousand deaths by Jack London

facing him, curiously eager and intent. The warmth and security of the

animal angered him, and he cursed it till it flattened down its ears

appeasingly. This time the shivering came more quickly upon the man. He

was losing in his battle with the frost. It was creeping into his body from

all sides. The thought of it drove him on, but he ran no more than a

hundred feet, when he staggered and pitched headlong. It was his last

panic. When he had recovered his breath and control, he sat up and

entertained in his mind the conception of meeting death with dignity.

However, the conception did not come to him in such terms. His idea of it

was that he had been making a fool of himself, running around like a

chicken with its head cut off — such was the simile that occurred to him.

Well, he was bound to freeze anyway, and he might as well take it

decently. With this new-found peace of mind came the first glimmerings

of drowsiness. A good idea, he thought, to sleep off to death. It was like

taking an anaesthetic. Freezing was not so bad as people thought. There

were lots worse ways to die.

He pictured the boys finding his body next day. Suddenly he found

himself with them, coming along the trail and looking for himself. And,

still with them, he came around a turn in the trail and found himself lying

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37

in the snow. He did not belong with himself any more, for even then he

was out of himself, standing with the boys and looking at himself in the

snow. It certainly was cold, was his thought. When he got back to the

States he could tell the folks what real cold was. He drifted on from this to

a vision of the old-timer on Sulphur Creek. He could see him quite clearly,

warm and comfortable, and smoking a pipe.

“You were right, old hoss; you were right,” the man mumbled to the oldtimer

of Sulphur Creek.

Then the man drowsed off into what seemed to him the most comfortable

and satisfying sleep he had ever known. The dog sat facing him and

waiting. The brief day drew to a close in a long, slow twilight. There were

no signs of a fire to be made, and, besides, never in the dog’s experience

had it known a man to sit like that in the snow and make no fire. As the

twilight drew on, its eager yearning for the fire mastered it, and with a

great lifting and shifting of forefeet, it whined softly, then flattened its ears

down in anticipation of being chidden by the man. But the man remained

silent. Later, the dog whined loudly. And still later it crept close to the

man and caught the scent of death. This made the animal bristle and back

away. A little longer it delayed, howling under the stars that leaped and

danced and shone brightly in the cold sky. Then it turned and trotted up

the trail in the direction of the camp it knew, where were the other foodproviders

and fire-providers.

THAT SPOT

I DON’T think much of Stephen Mackaye any more, though I used to

swear by him. I know that in those days I loved him more than my own

brother. If ever I meet Stephen Mackaye again, I shall not be responsible

for my actions. It passes beyond me that a man with whom I shared food

and blanket, and with whom I mushed over the Chilcoot Trail, should turn

out the way he did. I always sized Steve up as a square man, a kindly

comrade, without an iota of anything vindictive or malicious in his nature.

I shall never trust my judgment in men again. Why, I nursed that man

through typhoid fever; we starved together on the headwaters of the

Stewart; and he saved my life on the Little Salmon. And now, after the

years we were together, all I can say of Stephen Mackaye is that he is the

meanest man I ever knew.

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38

We started for the Klondike in the fall rush of 1897, and we started too

late to get over Chilcoot Pass before the freeze-up. We packed our outfit

on our backs part way over, when the snow began to fly, and then we had

to buy dogs in order to sled it the rest of the way. That was how we came

to get that Spot. Dogs were high, and we paid one hundred and ten dollars

for him. He looked worth it. I say looked, because he was one of the

finest-appearing dogs I ever saw. He weighed sixty pounds, and he had all

the lines of a good sled animal. We never could make out his breed. He

wasn’t husky, nor Malemute, nor Hudson Bay; he looked like all of them

and he didn’t look like any of them; and on top of it all he had some of the

white man’s dog in him, for on one side, in the thick of the mixed yellowbrown-

red-and-dirty-white that was his prevailing color, there was a spot

of coal-black as big as a water-bucket. That was why we called him Spot.

He was a good looker all right. When he was in condition his muscles

stood out in bunches all over him. And he was the strongest-looking brute

I ever saw in Alaska, also the most intelligent-looking. To run your eyes

over him, you’d think he could outpull three dogs of his own weight.

Maybe he could, but I never saw it. His intelligence didn’t run that way.

He could steal and forage to perfection; he had an instinct that was

positively grewsome for divining when work was to be done and for

making a sneak accordingly; and for getting lost and not staying lost he

was nothing short of inspired. But when it came to work, the way that

intelligence dribbled out of him and left him a mere clot of wobbling,

stupid jelly would make your heart bleed.

There are times when I think it wasn’t stupidity. Maybe, like some men I

know, he was too wise to work. I shouldn’t wonder if he put it all over us

with that intelligence of his. Maybe he figured it all out and decided that a

licking now and again and no work was a whole lot better than work all

the time and no licking. He was intelligent enough for such a computation.

I tell you, I’ve sat and looked into that dog’s eyes till the shivers ran up and

down my spine and the marrow crawled like yeast, what of the

intelligence I saw shining out. I can’t express myself about that

intelligence. It is beyond mere words. I saw it, that’s all. At times it was

like gazing into a human soul, to look into his eyes; and what I saw there

frightened me and started all sorts of ideas in my own mind of

reincarnation and all the rest. I tell you I sensed something big in that

brute’s eyes; there was a message there, but I wasn’t big enough myself to

catch it. Whatever it was (I know I’m making a fool of myself)Äwhatever

it was, it baffled me. I can’t give an inkling of what I saw in that brute’s

eyes; it wasn’t light, it wasn’t color; it was something that moved, away

back, when the eyes themselves weren’t moving. And I guess I didn’t see it

move, either; I only sensed that it moved. It was an expression,–that’s

what it was,–and I got an impression of it. No; it was different from a

mere expression; it was more than that. I don’t know what it was, but it

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gave me a feeling of kinship just the same. Oh, no, not sentimental

kinship. It was, rather, a kinship of equality. Those eyes never pleaded like

a deer’s eyes. They challenged. No, it wasn’t defiance. It was just a calm

assumption of equality. And I don’t think it was deliberate. My belief is

that it was unconscious on his part. It was there because it was there, and it

couldn’t help shining out. No, I don’t mean shine. It didn’t shine; it moved.

I know I’m talking rot, but if you’d looked into that animal’s eyes the way I

have, you’d understand Steve was affected the same way I was. Why, I

tried to kill that Spot once–he was no good for anything; and I fell down

on it. I led him out into the brush, and he came along slow and unwilling.

He knew what was going on. I stopped in a likely place, put my foot on

the rope, and pulled my big Colt’s. And that dog sat down and looked at

me. I tell you he didn’t plead. He just looked. And I saw all kinds of