A thousand deaths by Jack London

“I’ve been holding back to give you a chance,” Smoke jeered.

“An’ I’m plum troddin’ on your heels. If you can’t do better, let

me go ahead and set pace.”

Smoke quickened, and was soon at the rear of the nearest bunch of

stampeders.

“Hike along, you, Smoke,” the other urged. “Walk over them unburied

dead. This ain’t no funeral. Hit the frost like you was goin’

somewheres.”

Smoke counted eight men and two women in this party, and before the

way across the jam-ice was won, he and Shorty had passed another

party twenty strong. Within a few feet of the west bank, the trail

swerved to the south, emerging from the jam upon smooth ice. The

ice, however, was buried under several feet of fine snow. Through

this the sled-trail ran, a narrow ribbon of packed footing barely

two feet in width. On either side one sank to his knees and deeper

in the snow. The stampeders they overtook were reluctant to give

way, and often Smoke and Shorty had to plunge into the deep snow,

and by supreme efforts flounder past.

Shorty was irrepressible and pessimistic. When the stampeders

resented being passed, he retorted in kind.

“What’s your hurry?” one of them asked.

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45

“What’s yours?” he answered. “A stampede come down from Indian

River yesterday afternoon an’ beat you to it. They ain’t no claims

left.”

“That being so, I repeat, what’s your hurry?”

“WHO? Me? I ain’t no stampeder. I’m workin’ for the government.

I’m on official business. I’m just traipsin’ along to take the

census of Squaw Creek.”

To another, who hailed him with: “Where away, little one? Do you

really expect to stake a claim?” Shorty answered:

“Me? I’m the discoverer of Squaw Creek. I’m just comin’ back from

recordin’ so as to see no blamed chechaquo jumps my claim.”

The average pace of the stampeders on the smooth going was three

miles and a half an hour. Smoke and Shorty were doing four and a

half, though sometimes they broke into short runs and went faster.

“I’m going to travel your feet clean off, Shorty,” Smoke challenged.

“Huh! I can hike along on the stumps an’ wear the heels off your

moccasins. Though it ain’t no use. I’ve ben figgerin’. Creek

claims is five hundred feet. Call ’em ten to the mile. They’s a

thousand stampeders ahead of us, an’ that creek ain’t no hundred

miles long. Somebody’s goin’ to get left, an’ it makes a noise like

you an’ me.”

Before replying, Smoke let out an unexpected link that threw Shorty

half a dozen feet in the rear.

“If you saved your breath and kept up, we’d cut down a few of that

thousand,” he chided.

“Who? Me? If you’s get outa the way I’d show you a pace what is.”

Smoke laughed, and let out another link. The whole aspect of the

adventure had changed. Through his brain was running a phrase of

the mad philosopher–“the transvaluation of values.” In truth, he

was less interested in staking a fortune than in beating Shorty.

After all, he concluded, it wasn’t the reward of the game but the

playing of it that counted. Mind, and muscle, and stamina, and

soul, were challenged in a contest with this Shorty, a man who had

never opened the books, and who did not know grand opera from rag-

time, nor an epic from a chilblain.

“Shorty, I’ve got you skinned to death. I’ve reconstructed every

cell in my body since I hit the beach at Dyea. My flesh is as

stringy as whipcords, and as bitter and mean as the bite of a

rattlesnake. A few months ago I’d have patted myself on the back to

write such words, but I couldn’t have written them. I had to live

them first, and now that I’m living them there’s no need to write

them. I’m the real, bitter, stinging goods, and no scrub of a

mountaineer can put anything over on me without getting it back

compound. Now, you go ahead and set pace for half an hour. Do your

worst, and when you’re all in I’ll go ahead and give you half an

SMOKE BELLEW

46

hour of the real worst.”

“Huh!” Shorty sneered genially. “An’ him not dry behind the ears

yet. Get outa the way an’ let your father show you some goin’.”

Half-hour by half-hour they alternated in setting pace. Nor did

they talk much. Their exertions kept them warm, though their breath

froze on their faces from lips to chin. So intense was the cold

that they almost continually rubbed their noses and cheeks with

their mittens. A few minutes cessation from this allowed the flesh

to grow numb, and then most vigorous rubbing was required to produce

the burning prickle of returning circulation.

Often they thought they had reached the lead, but always they

overtook more stampeders who had started before them. Occasionally,

groups of men attempted to swing in behind to their pace, but

invariably they were discouraged after a mile or two, and

disappeared in the darkness to the rear.

“We’ve been out on trail all winter,” was Shorty’s comment. “An’

them geezers, soft from laying around their cabins, has the nerve to

think they can keep our stride. Now, if they was real sour-doughs

it’d be different. If there’s one thing a sour-dough can do it’s

sure walk.”

Once, Smoke lighted a match and glanced at his watch. He never

repeated it, for so quick was the bite of the frost on his bared

hands, that half an hour passed before they were again comfortable.

“Four o’clock,” he said, as he pulled on his mittens, “and we’ve

already passed three hundred.”

“Three hundred and thirty-eight,” Shorty corrected. “I ben keepin’

count. Get outa the way, stranger. Let somebody stampede that

knows how to stampede.”

The latter was addressed to a man, evidently exhausted, who could no

more than stumble along, and who blocked the trail. This, and one

other, were the only played-out men they encountered, for they were

very near to the head of the stampede. Nor did they learn till

afterwards the horrors of that night. Exhausted men sat down to

rest by the way, and failed to get up. Seven were frozen to death,

while scores of amputations of toes, feet, and fingers were

performed in the Dawson hospitals on the survivors. For of all

nights for a stampede, the one to Squaw Creek occurred on the

coldest night of the year. Before morning, the spirit thermometers

at Dawson registered seventy degrees below zero. The men composing

the stampede, with few exceptions, were new-comers in the country

who did not know the way of the cold.

The other played-out man they found a few minutes later, revealed by

a streamer of aurora borealis that shot like a searchlight from

horizon to zenith. He was sitting on a piece of ice beside the

trail.

“Hop along, sister Mary,” Shorty gaily greeted him. “Keep movin’.

If you sit there you’ll freeze stiff.”

SMOKE BELLEW

47

The man made no response, and they stopped to investigate.

“Stiff as a poker,” was Shorty’s verdict. “If you tumbled him over

he’d break.”

“See if he’s breathing,” Smoke said, as, with bared hands, he sought

through furs and woollens for the man’s heart.

Shorty lifted one ear-flap and bent to the iced lips.

“Nary breathe,” he reported.

“Nor heart-beat,” said Smoke.

He mittened his hand and beat it violently for a minute before

exposing it to the frost to strike a match. It was an old man,

incontestably dead. In the moment of illumination, they saw a long

grey beard, massed with ice to the nose, cheeks that were white with

frost, and closed eyes with frost-rimmed lashes frozen together.

Then the match went out.

“Come on,” Shorty said, rubbing his ear. “We can’t do nothing for

the old geezer. An’ I’ve sure frosted my ear. Now all the blamed

skin’ll peel off and it’ll be sore for a week.”

A few minutes later, when a flaming ribbon spilled pulsating fire

over the heavens, they saw on the ice a quarter of a mile ahead two

forms. Beyond, for a mile, nothing moved.

“They’re leading the procession,” Smoke said, as darkness fell

again. “Come on, let’s get them.”

At the end of half an hour, not yet having overtaken the two in

front, Shorty broke into a run.

“If we catch ’em we’ll never pass ’em,” he panted. “Lord, what a

pace they’re hittin’. Dollars to doughnuts they’re no chechaquos.

They’re the real sour-dough variety, you can stack on that.”

Smoke was leading when they finally caught up, and he was glad to

ease to a walk at their heels. Almost immediately he got the

impression that the one nearer him was a woman. How this impression

came, he could not tell. Hooded and furred, the dark form was as

any form; yet there was a haunting sense of familiarity about it.