and hair. When there is little wood, the fire burns low and the
cabin grows cold. So with us. With little grub the frost bites
sharp, and our faces were black and frozen till our own mothers
would not have known us. And our feet were very sore. In the
morning, when I hit the trail, I sweated to keep down the cry when
the pain of the snowshoes smote me. Passuk never opened her lips,
but stepped to the fore to break the way. The man howled.
“The Thirty Mile was swift, and the current ate away the ice from
beneath, and there were many air-holes and cracks, and much open
water. One day we came upon the man, resting, for he had gone
ahead, as was his wont, in the morning. But between us was open
water. This he had passed around by taking to the rim-ice where
it was too narrow for a sled. So we found an ice-bridge. Passuk
weighed little, and went first, with a long pole crosswise in her
hands in chance she broke through. But she was light, and her
shoes large, and she passed over. Then she called the dogs. But
they had neither poles nor shoes, and they broke through and were
swept under by the water. I held tight to the sled from behind,
till the traces broke and the dogs went on down under the ice.
There was little meat to them, but I had counted on them for a
week’s grub, and they were gone.
“The next morning I divided all the grub, which was little, into
three portions. And I told Long Jeff that he could keep up with
us, or not, as he saw fit; for we were going to travel light and
Tales of the Klondyke
67
fast. But he raised his voice and cried over his sore feet and
his troubles, and said harsh things against comradeship. Passuk’s
feet were sore, and my feet were sore–ay, sorer than his, for we
had worked with the dogs; also, we looked to see. Long Jeff swore
he would die before he hit the trail again; so Passuk took a fur
robe, and I a cooking pot and an axe, and we made ready to go.
But she looked on the man’s portion, and said, ‘It is wrong to
waste good food on a baby. He is better dead.’ I shook my head
and said no–that a comrade once was a comrade always. Then she
spoke of the men of Forty Mile; that they were many men and good;
and that they looked to me for grub in the spring. But when I
still said no, she snatched the pistol from my belt, quick, and as
our brother Bettles has spoken, Long Jeff went to the bosom of
Abraham before his time. I chided Passuk for this; but she showed
no sorrow, nor was she sorrowful. And in my heart I knew she was
right.”
Sitka Charley paused and threw pieces of ice into the gold pan on
the stove. The men were silent, and their backs chilled to the
sobbing cries of the dogs as they gave tongue to their misery in
the outer cold.
“And day by day we passed in the snow the sleeping-places of the
two ghosts–Passuk and I–and we knew we would be glad for such
ere we made Salt Water. Then we came to the Indian, like another
ghost, with his face set toward Pelly. They had not whacked up
fair, the man and the boy, he said, and he had had no flour for
three days. Each night he boiled pieces of his moccasins in a
cup, and ate them. He did not have much moccasins left. And he
was a Coast Indian, and told us these things through Passuk, who
talked his tongue. He was a stranger in the Yukon, and he knew
not the way, but his face was set to Pelly. How far was it? Two
sleeps? ten? a hundred–he did not know, but he was going to
Pelly. It was too far to turn back; he could only keep on.
“He did not ask for grub, for he could see we, too, were hard put.
Passuk looked at the man, and at me, as though she were of two
minds, like a mother partridge whose young are in trouble. So I
turned to her and said, ‘This man has been dealt unfair. Shall I
give him of our grub a portion?’ I saw her eyes light, as with
quick pleasure; but she looked long at the man and at me, and her
mouth drew close and hard, and she said, ‘No. The Salt Water is
afar off, and Death lies in wait. Better it is that he take this
stranger man and let my man Charley pass.’ So the man went away
in the Silence toward Pelly. That night she wept. Never had I
seen her weep before. Nor was it the smoke of the fire, for the
wood was dry wood. So I marveled at her sorrow, and thought her
woman’s heart had grown soft at the darkness of the trail and the
pain.
“Life is a strange thing. Much have I thought on it, and pondered
long, yet daily the strangeness of it grows not less, but more.
Why this longing for Life? It is a game which no man wins. To
Tales of the Klondyke
68
live is to toil hard, and to suffer sore, till Old Age creeps
heavily upon us and we throw down our hands on the cold ashes of
dead fires. It is hard to live. In pain the babe sucks his first
breath, in pain the old man gasps his last, and all his days are
full of trouble and sorrow; yet he goes down to the open arms of
Death, stumbling, falling, with head turned backward, fighting to
the last. And Death is kind. It is only Life, and the things of
Life that hurt. Yet we love Life, and we hate Death. It is very
strange.
“We spoke little, Passuk and I, in the days which came. In the
night we lay in the snow like dead people, and in the morning we
went on our way, walking like dead people. And all things were
dead. There were no ptarmigan, no squirrels, no snowshoe
rabbits,–nothing. The river made no sound beneath its white
robes. The sap was frozen in the forest. And it became cold, as
now; and in the night the stars drew near and large, and leaped
and danced; and in the day the sun-dogs mocked us till we saw many
suns, and all the air flashed and sparkled, and the snow was
diamond dust. And there was no heat, no sound, only the bitter
cold and the Silence. As I say, we walked like dead people, as in
a dream, and we kept no count of time. Only our faces were set to
Salt Water, our souls strained for Salt Water, and our feet
carried us toward Salt Water. We camped by the Tahkeena, and knew
it not. Our eyes looked upon the White Horse, but we saw it not.
Our feet trod the portage of the Canyon, but they felt it not. We
felt nothing. And we fell often by the way, but we fell, always,
with our faces toward Salt Water.
“Our last grub went, and we had shared fair, Passuk and I, but she
fell more often, and at Caribou Crossing her strength left her.
And in the morning we lay beneath the one robe and did not take
the trail. It was in my mind to stay there and meet Death hand-
in-hand with Passuk; for I had grown old, and had learned the love
of woman. Also, it was eighty miles to Haines Mission, and the
great Chilcoot, far above the timber-line, reared his storm-swept
head between. But Passuk spoke to me, low, with my ear against
her lips that I might hear. And now, because she need not fear my
anger, she spoke her heart, and told me of her love, and of many
things which I did not understand.
“And she said: ‘You are my man, Charley, and I have been a good
woman to you. And in all the days I have made your fire, and
cooked your food, and fed your dogs, and lifted paddle or broken
trail, I have not complained. Nor did I say that there was more
warmth in the lodge of my father, or that there was more grub on
the Chilcat. When you have spoken, I have listened. When you
have ordered, I have obeyed. Is it not so, Charley?’
“And I said: ‘Ay, it is so.’
“And she said: ‘When first you came to the Chilcat, nor looked
upon me, but bought me as a man buys a dog, and took me away, my
Tales of the Klondyke
69