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Love of Life & Other Stories
London, Jack
LOVE OF LIFE
"This out of all will remain -They have lived and have tossed: So
much of the game will be gain, Though the gold of the dice has
been lost."
THEY limped painfully down the bank, and once the foremost of the
two men staggered among the rough-strewn rocks. They were tired and
weak, and their faces had the drawn expression of patience which comes
of hardship long endured. They were heavily burdened with blanket
packs which were strapped to their shoulders. Head-straps, passing
across the forehead, helped support these packs. Each man carried a
rifle. They walked in a stooped posture, the shoulders well forward, the
head still farther forward, the eyes bent upon the ground.
"I wish we had just about two of them cartridges that's layin' in that
cache of ourn," said the second man.
His voice was utterly and drearily expressionless. He spoke without
enthusiasm; and the first man, limping into the milky stream that
foamed over the rocks, vouchsafed no reply.
The other man followed at his heels. They did not remove their foot-
gear, though the water was icy cold -so cold that their ankles ached and
their feet went numb. In places the water dashed against their knees, and
both men staggered for footing.
The man who followed slipped on a smooth boulder, nearly fell, but
recovered himself with a violent effort, at the same time uttering a sharp
exclamation of pain. He seemed faint and dizzy and put out his free
hand while he reeled, as though seeking support against the air. When
he had steadied himself he stepped forward, but reeled again and nearly
fell. Then he stood still and looked at the other man, who had never
turned his head.
The man stood still for fully a minute, as though debating with himself.
Then he called out:
"I say, Bill, I've sprained my ankle."
Bill staggered on through the milky water. He did not look around.
The man watched him go, and though his face was expressionless as
ever, his eyes were like the eyes of a wounded deer.
The other man limped up the farther bank and continued straight on
without looking back. The man in the stream watched him. His lips
trembled a little, so that the rough thatch of brown hair which covered
them was visibly agitated. His tongue even strayed out to moisten them.
"Bill!" he cried out.
It was the pleading cry of a strong man in distress, but Bill's head did
not turn. The man watched him go, limping grotesquely and lurching
forward with stammering gait up the slow slope toward the soft sky-line
of the low-lying hill. He watched him go till he passed over the crest and
disappeared. Then he turned his gaze and slowly took in the circle of the
world that remained to him now that Bill was gone.
Near the horizon the sun was smouldering dimly, almost obscured by
formless mists and vapors, which gave an impression of mass and density
without outline or tangibility. The man pulled out his watch, the
while resting his weight on one leg. It was four o'clock, and as the season
was near the last of July or first of August, -he did not know the precise
date within a week or two, -he knew that the sun roughly marked the
northwest. He looked to the south and knew that somewhere beyond
those bleak hills lay the Great Bear Lake; also, he knew that in that direction
the Arctic Circle cut its forbidding way across the Canadian Barrens.
This stream in which he stood was a feeder to the Coppermine River,
which in turn flowed north and emptied into Coronation Gulf and the
Arctic Ocean. He had never been there, but he had seen it, once, on a
Hudson Bay Company chart.
Again his gaze completed the circle of the world about him. It was not
a heartening spectacle. Everywhere was soft sky-line. The hills were all
low-lying. There were no trees, no shrubs, no grasses -naught but a tremendous
and terrible desolation that sent fear swiftly dawning into his
eyes.
"Bill!" he whispered, once and twice; "Bill!"
He cowered in the midst of the milky water, as though the vastness
were pressing in upon him with overwhelming force, brutally crushing
him with its complacent awfulness. He began to shake as with an ague-
fit, till the gun fell from his hand with a splash. This served to rouse him.
He fought with his fear and pulled himself together, groping in the water
and recovering the weapon. He hitched his pack farther over on his
left shoulder, so as to take a portion of its weight from off the injured
ankle. Then he proceeded, slowly and carefully, wincing with pain, to
the bank.
He did not stop. With a desperation that was madness, unmindful of
the pain, he hurried up the slope to the crest of the hill over which his
comrade had disappeared -more grotesque and comical by far than that
limping, jerking comrade. But at the crest he saw a shallow valley, empty
of life. He fought with his fear again, overcame it, hitched the pack still
farther over on his left shoulder, and lurched on down the slope.
The bottom of the valley was soggy with water, which the thick moss
held, spongelike, close to the surface. This water squirted out from under
his feet at every step, and each time he lifted a foot the action culminated
in a sucking sound as the wet moss reluctantly released its grip. He
picked his way from muskeg to muskeg, and followed the other man's
footsteps along and across the rocky ledges which thrust like islets
through the sea of moss.
Though alone, he was not lost. Farther on he knew he would come to
where dead spruce and fir, very small and weazened, bordered the shore
of a little lake, the TITCHIN-NICHILIE, in the tongue of the country, the
"land of little sticks." And into that lake flowed a small stream, the water
of which was not milky. There was rush-grass on that stream -this he
remembered well -but no timber, and he would follow it till its first
trickle ceased at a divide. He would cross this divide to the first trickle of
another stream, flowing to the west, which he would follow until it emptied
into the river Dease, and here he would find a cache under an upturned
canoe and piled over with many rocks. And in this cache would
be ammunition for his empty gun, fish-hooks and lines, a small net -all
the utilities for the killing and snaring of food. Also, he would find flour,
-not much, - a piece of bacon, and some beans.
Bill would be waiting for him there, and they would paddle away
south down the Dease to the Great Bear Lake. And south across the lake
they would go, ever south, till they gained the Mackenzie. And south,
still south, they would go, while the winter raced vainly after them, and
the ice formed in the eddies, and the days grew chill and crisp, south to
some warm Hudson Bay Company post, where timber grew tall and
generous and there was grub without end.
These were the thoughts of the man as he strove onward. But hard as
he strove with his body, he strove equally hard with his mind, trying to
think that Bill had not deserted him, that Bill would surely wait for him
at the cache. He was compelled to think this thought, or else there would
not be any use to strive, and he would have lain down and died. And as
the dim ball of the sun sank slowly into the northwest he covered every
inch -and many times -of his and Bill's flight south before the down-
coming winter. And he conned the grub of the cache and the grub of the
Hudson Bay Company post over and over again. He had not eaten for
two days; for a far longer time he had not had all he wanted to eat. Often
he stooped and picked pale muskeg berries, put them into his mouth,
and chewed and swallowed them. A muskeg berry is a bit of seed enclosed
in a bit of water. In the mouth the water melts away and the seed
chews sharp and bitter. The man knew there was no nourishment in the
berries, but he chewed them patiently with a hope greater than knowledge
and defying experience.
At nine o'clock he stubbed his toe on a rocky ledge, and from sheer
weariness and weakness staggered and fell. He lay for some time,
without movement, on his side. Then he slipped out of the pack-straps
and clumsily dragged himself into a sitting posture. It was not yet dark,
and in the lingering twilight he groped about among the rocks for shreds
of dry moss. When he had gathered a heap he built a fire, -a smouldering,
smudgy fire, - and put a tin pot of water on to boil.
He unwrapped his pack and the first thing he did was to count his
matches. There were sixty-seven. He counted them three times to make
sure. He divided them into several portions, wrapping them in oil paper,
disposing of one bunch in his empty tobacco pouch, of another bunch in
the inside band of his battered hat, of a third bunch under his shirt on
the chest. This accomplished, a panic came upon him, and he unwrapped
them all and counted them again. There were still sixty-seven.
He dried his wet foot-gear by the fire. The moccasins were in soggy
shreds. The blanket socks were worn through in places, and his feet were
raw and bleeding. His ankle was throbbing, and he gave it an examination.
It had swollen to the size of his knee. He tore a long strip from one
of his two blankets and bound the ankle tightly. He tore other strips and
bound them about his feet to serve for both moccasins and socks. Then
he drank the pot of water, steaming hot, wound his watch, and crawled
between his blankets.
He slept like a dead man. The brief darkness around midnight came
and went. The sun arose in the northeast -at least the day dawned in
that quarter, for the sun was hidden by gray clouds.
At six o'clock he awoke, quietly lying on his back. He gazed straight
up into the gray sky and knew that he was hungry. As he rolled over on
his elbow he was startled by a loud snort, and saw a bull caribou regarding
him with alert curiosity. The animal was not mere than fifty feet
away, and instantly into the man's mind leaped the vision and the savor
of a caribou steak sizzling and frying over a fire. Mechanically he
reached for the empty gun, drew a bead, and pulled the trigger. The bull
snorted and leaped away, his hoofs rattling and clattering as he fled
across the ledges.
The man cursed and flung the empty gun from him. He groaned aloud
as he started to drag himself to his feet. It was a slow and arduous task.
His joints were like rusty hinges. They worked harshly in their sockets,
with much friction, and each bending or unbending was accomplished
only through a sheer exertion of will. When he finally gained his feet, another
minute or so was consumed in straightening up, so that he could
stand erect as a man should stand.
He crawled up a small knoll and surveyed the prospect. There were no
trees, no bushes, nothing but a gray sea of moss scarcely diversified by
gray rocks, gray lakelets, and gray streamlets. The sky was gray. There
was no sun nor hint of sun. He had no idea of north, and he had forgotten
the way he had come to this spot the night before. But he was not
lost. He knew that. Soon he would come to the land of the little sticks. He
felt that it lay off to the left somewhere, not far -possibly just over the
next low hill.
He went back to put his pack into shape for travelling. He assured
himself of the existence of his three separate parcels of matches, though
he did not stop to count them. But he did linger, debating, over a squat
moose-hide sack. It was not large. He could hide it under his two hands.
He knew that it weighed fifteen pounds, -as much as all the rest of the
pack, -and it worried him. He finally set it to one side and proceeded to
roll the pack. He paused to gaze at the squat moose-hide sack. He picked
it up hastily with a defiant glance about him, as though the desolation
were trying to rob him of it; and when he rose to his feet to stagger on into
the day, it was included in the pack on his back.
He bore away to the left, stopping now and again to eat muskeg berries.
His ankle had stiffened, his limp was more pronounced, but the
pain of it was as nothing compared with the pain of his stomach. The
hunger pangs were sharp. They gnawed and gnawed until he could not
keep his mind steady on the course he must pursue to gain the land of
little sticks. The muskeg berries did not allay this gnawing, while they
made his tongue and the roof of his mouth sore with their irritating bite.
He came upon a valley where rock ptarmigan rose on whirring wings
from the ledges and muskegs. Ker -ker -ker was the cry they made. He
threw stones at them, but could not hit them. He placed his pack on the
ground and stalked them as a cat stalks a sparrow. The sharp rocks cut
through his pants' legs till his knees left a trail of blood; but the hurt was
lost in the hurt of his hunger. He squirmed over the wet moss, saturating
his clothes and chilling his body; but he was not aware of it, so great was
his fever for food. And always the ptarmigan rose, whirring, before him,
till their ker -ker -ker became a mock to him, and he cursed them and
cried aloud at them with their own cry.
Once he crawled upon one that must have been asleep. He did not see
it till it shot up in his face from its rocky nook. He made a clutch as
startled as was the rise of the ptarmigan, and there remained in his hand
three tail-feathers. As he watched its flight he hated it, as though it had
done him some terrible wrong. Then he returned and shouldered his
pack.
As the day wore along he came into valleys or swales where game was
more plentiful. A band of caribou passed by, twenty and odd animals,
tantalizingly within rifle range. He felt a wild desire to run after them, a
certitude that he could run them down. A black fox came toward him,
carrying a ptarmigan in his mouth. The man shouted. It was a fearful
cry, but the fox, leaping away in fright, did not drop the ptarmigan.
Late in the afternoon he followed a stream, milky with lime, which ran
through sparse patches of rush-grass. Grasping these rushes firmly near
the root, he pulled up what resembled a young onion-sprout no larger
than a shingle-nail. It was tender, and his teeth sank into it with a crunch
that promised deliciously of food. But its fibers were tough. It was composed
of stringy filaments saturated with water, like the berries, and
devoid of nourishment. He threw off his pack and went into the rush-
grass on hands and knees, crunching and munching, like some bovine
creature.
He was very weary and often wished to rest -to lie down and sleep;
but he was continually driven on -not so much by his desire to gain the
land of little sticks as by his hunger. He searched little ponds for frogs
and dug up the earth with his nails for worms, though he knew in spite
that neither frogs nor worms existed so far north.
He looked into every pool of water vainly, until, as the long twilight
came on, he discovered a solitary fish, the size of a minnow, in such a
pool. He plunged his arm in up to the shoulder, but it eluded him. He
reached for it with both hands and stirred up the milky mud at the bottom.
In his excitement he fell in, wetting himself to the waist. Then the
water was too muddy to admit of his seeing the fish, and he was compelled
to wait until the sediment had settled.
The pursuit was renewed, till the water was again muddied. But he
could not wait. He unstrapped the tin bucket and began to bale the pool.
He baled wildly at first, splashing himself and flinging the water so short
a distance that it ran back into the pool. He worked more carefully, striving
to be cool, though his heart was pounding against his chest and his
hands were trembling. At the end of half an hour the pool was nearly
dry. Not a cupful of water remained. And there was no fish. He found a
hidden crevice among the stones through which it had escaped to the adjoining
and larger pool -a pool which he could not empty in a night and
a day. Had he known of the crevice, he could have closed it with a rock
at the beginning and the fish would have been his.
Thus he thought, and crumpled up and sank down upon the wet
earth. At first he cried softly to himself, then he cried loudly to the pitiless
desolation that ringed him around; and for a long time after he was
shaken by great dry sobs.
He built a fire and warmed himself by drinking quarts of hot water,
and made camp on a rocky ledge in the same fashion he had the night
before. The last thing he did was to see that his matches were dry and to
wind his watch. The blankets were wet and clammy. His ankle pulsed
with pain. But he knew only that he was hungry, and through his restless
sleep he dreamed of feasts and banquets and of food served and
spread in all imaginable ways.
He awoke chilled and sick. There was no sun. The gray of earth and
sky had become deeper, more profound. A raw wind was blowing, and
the first flurries of snow were whitening the hilltops. The air about him
thickened and grew white while he made a fire and boiled more water. It
was wet snow, half rain, and the flakes were large and soggy. At first
they melted as soon as they came in contact with the earth, but ever
more fell, covering the ground, putting out the fire, spoiling his supply
of moss-fuel.
This was a signal for him to strap on his pack and stumble onward, he
knew not where. He was not concerned with the land of little sticks, nor
with Bill and the cache under the upturned canoe by the river Dease. He
was mastered by the verb "to eat." He was hunger-mad. He took no
heed of the course he pursued, so long as that course led him through
the swale bottoms. He felt his way through the wet snow to the watery
muskeg berries, and went by feel as he pulled up the rush-grass by the
roots. But it was tasteless stuff and did not satisfy. He found a **** that
tasted sour and he ate all he could find of it, which was not much, for it
was a creeping growth, easily hidden under the several inches of snow.
He had no fire that night, nor hot water, and crawled under his
blanket to sleep the broken hunger-sleep. The snow turned into a cold
rain. He awakened many times to feel it falling on his upturned face.
Day came -a gray day and no sun. It had ceased raining. The keenness of
his hunger had departed. Sensibility, as far as concerned the yearning for
food, had been exhausted. There was a dull, heavy ache in his stomach,
but it did not bother him so much. He was more rational, and once more
he was chiefly interested in the land of little sticks and the cache by the
river Dease.
He ripped the remnant of one of his blankets into strips and bound his
bleeding feet. Also, he recinched the injured ankle and prepared himself
for a day of travel. When he came to his pack, he paused long over the
squat moose-hide sack, but in the end it went with him.
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