Grit of Women
A wolfish head, wistful-eyed and frost-rimed, thrust aside thetent-flaps."Hi! Chook! Siwash! Chook, you limb of Satan!" chorused theprotesting inmates. Bettles rapped the dog sharply with a tinplate, and it withdrew hastily. Louis Savoy refastened the flaps,kicked a frying-pan over against the bottom, and warmed his hands.It was very cold without. Forty-eight hours gone, the spiritthermometer had burst at sixty-eight below, and since that time ithad grown steadily and bitterly colder. There was no telling whenthe snap would end. And it is poor policy, unless the gods willit, to venture far from a stove at such times, or to increase thequantity of cold atmosphere one must breathe. Men sometimes doit, and sometimes they chill their lungs. This leads up to a dry,hacking cough, noticeably irritable when bacon is being fried.After that, somewhere along in the spring or summer, a hole isburned in the frozen muck. Into this a man's carcass is dumped,covered over with moss, and left with the assurance that it willrise on the crack of Doom, wholly and frigidly intact. For thoseof little faith, sceptical of material integration on that fatefulday, no fitter country than the Klondike can be recommended to diein. But it is not to be inferred from this that it is a fitcountry for living purposes.It was very cold without, but it was not over-warm within. Theonly article which might be designated furniture was the stove,and for this the men were frank in displaying their preference.Upon half of the floor pine boughs had been cast; above this werespread the sleeping-furs, beneath lay the winter's snowfall. Theremainder of the floor was moccasin-packed snow, littered withpots and pans and the general impedimenta of an Arctic camp. Thestove was red and roaring hot, but only a bare three feet away laya block of ice, as sharp-edged and dry as when first quarried fromthe creek bottom. The pressure of the outside cold forced theinner heat upward. Just above the stove, where the pipepenetrated the roof, was a tiny circle of dry canvas; next, withthe pipe always as centre, a circle of steaming canvas; next adamp and moisture-exuding ring; and finally, the rest of the tent,sidewalls and top, coated with a half-inch of dry, white, crystal-encrusted frost."Oh! Oh! Oh!" A young fellow, lying asleep in the furs, beardedand wan and weary, raised a moan of pain, and without wakingincreased the pitch and intensity of his anguish. His body half-lifted from the blankets, and quivered and shrank spasmodically,as though drawing away from a bed of nettles."Roll'm over!" ordered Bettles. "He's crampin'."And thereat, with pitiless good-will, he was pitched upon androlled and thumped and pounded by half-a-dozen willing comrades."Damn the trail," he muttered softly, as he threw off the robesand sat up. "I've run across country, played quarter threeseasons hand-running, and hardened myself in all manner of ways;and then I pilgrim it into this God-forsaken land and find myselfan effeminate Athenian without the simplest rudiments of manhood!"He hunched up to the fire and rolled a cigarette. "Oh, I'm notwhining. I can take my medicine all right, all right; but I'mjust decently ashamed of myself, that's all. Here I am, on top ofa dirty thirty miles, as knocked up and stiff and sore as a pink-tea degenerate after a five-mile walk on a country turn-pike.Bah! It makes me sick! Got a match?" "Don't git the tantrums,youngster." Bettles passed over the required fire-stick and waxedpatriarchal. "Ye've gotter 'low some for the breakin'-in.Sufferin' cracky! don't I recollect the first time I hit thetrail! Stiff? I've seen the time it'd take me ten minutes to gitmy mouth from the waterhole an' come to my feet--every jintcrackin' an' kickin' fit to kill. Cramp? In sech knots it'd takethe camp half a day to untangle me. You're all right, for a cub,any ye've the true sperrit. Come this day year, you'll walk allus old bucks into the ground any time. An' best in your favor,you hain't got that streak of fat in your make-up which has sentmany a husky man to the bosom of Abraham afore his right andproper time.""Streak of fat?""Yep. Comes along of bulk. 'T ain't the big men as is the bestwhen it comes to the trail.""Never heard of it.""Never heered of it, eh? Well, it's a dead straight, open-an'-shut fact, an' no gittin' round. Bulk's all well enough for amighty big effort, but 'thout stayin' powers it ain't worth acontinental whoop; an' stayin' powers an' bulk ain't runnin'mates. Takes the small, wiry fellows when it comes to gittin'right down an' hangin' on like a lean-jowled dog to a bone. Why,hell's fire, the big men they ain't in it!""By gar!" broke in Louis Savoy, "dat is no, vot you call, josh! Iknow one mans, so vaire beeg like ze buffalo. Wit him, on zeSulphur Creek stampede, go one small mans, Lon McFane. You knowdat Lon McFane, dat leetle Irisher wit ze red hair and ze grin.An' dey walk an' walk an' walk, all ze day long an' ze night long.And beeg mans, him become vaire tired, an' lay down mooch in zesnow. And leetle mans keek beeg mans, an' him cry like, vot youcall--ah! vot you call ze kid. And leetle mans keek an' keek an'keek, an' bime by, long time, long way, keek beeg mans into mycabin. Tree days 'fore him crawl out my blankets. Nevaire I seebeeg squaw like him. No nevaire. Him haf vot you call ze streakof fat. You bet.""But there was Axel Gunderson," Prince spoke up. The greatScandinavian, with the tragic events which shadowed his passing,had made a deep mark on the mining engineer. "He lies up there,somewhere." He swept his hand in the vague direction of themysterious east."Biggest man that ever turned his heels to Salt Water, or run amoose down with sheer grit," supplemented Bettles; "but he's theprove-the-rule exception. Look at his woman, Unga,--tip thescales at a hundred an' ten, clean meat an' nary ounce to spare.She'd bank grit 'gainst his for all there was in him, an' see him,an' go him better if it was possible. Nothing over the earth, orin it, or under it, she wouldn't 'a' done.""But she loved him," objected the engineer."'T ain't that. It--""Look you, brothers," broke in Sitka Charley from his seat on thegrub-box. "Ye have spoken of the streak of fat that runs in bigmen's muscles, of the grit of women and the love, and ye havespoken fair; but I have in mind things which happened when theland was young and the fires of men apart as the stars. It wasthen I had concern with a big man, and a streak of fat, and awoman. And the woman was small; but her heart was greater thanthe beef-heart of the man, and she had grit. And we traveled aweary trail, even to the Salt Water, and the cold was bitter, thesnow deep, the hunger great. And the woman's love was a mightylove--no more can man say than this."He paused, and with the hatchet broke pieces of ice from the largechunk beside him. These he threw into the gold pan on the stove,where the drinking-water thawed. The men drew up closer, and heof the cramps sought greater comfort vainly for his stiffenedbody."Brothers, my blood is red with Siwash, but my heart is white. Tothe faults of my fathers I owe the one, to the virtues of myfriends the other. A great truth came to me when I was yet a boy.I learned that to your kind and you was given the earth; that theSiwash could not withstand you, and like the caribou and the bear,must perish in the cold. So I came into the warm and sat amongyou, by your fires, and behold, I became one of you, I have seenmuch in my time. I have known strange things, and bucked big, onbig trails, with men of many breeds. And because of these things,I measure deeds after your manner, and judge men, and thinkthoughts. Wherefore, when I speak harshly of one of your ownkind, I know you will not take it amiss; and when I speak high ofone of my father's people, you will not take it upon you to say,'Sitka Charley is Siwash, and there is a crooked light in his eyesand small honor to his tongue.' Is it not so?"Deep down in throat, the circle vouchsafed its assent."The woman was Passuk. I got her in fair trade from her people,who were of the Coast and whose Chilcat totem stood at the head ofa salt arm of the sea. My heart did not go out to the woman, nordid I take stock of her looks. For she scarce took her eyes fromthe ground, and she was timid and afraid, as girls will be whencast into a stranger's arms whom they have never seen before. AsI say, there was no place in my heart for her to creep, for I hada great journey in mind, and stood in need of one to feed my dogsand to lift a paddle with me through the long river days. Oneblanket would cover the twain; so I chose Passuk."Have I not said I was a servant to the Government? If not, it iswell that ye know. So I was taken on a warship, sleds and dogsand evaporated foods, and with me came Passuk. And we went north,to the winter ice-rim of Bering Sea, where we were landed,--myself, and Passuk, and the dogs. I was also given moneys of theGovernment, for I was its servant, and charts of lands which theeyes of man had never dwelt upon, and messages. These messageswere sealed, and protected shrewdly from the weather, and I was todeliver them to the whale-ships of the Arctic, ice-bound by thegreat Mackenzie. Never was there so great a river, forgettingonly our own Yukon, the Mother of all Rivers."All of which is neither here nor there, for my story deals notwith the whale-ships, nor the berg-bound winter I spent by theMackenzie. Afterward, in the spring, when the days lengthened andthere was a crust to the snow, we came south, Passuk and I, to theCountry of the Yukon. A weary journey, but the sun pointed outthe way of our feet. It was a naked land then, as I have said,and we worked up the current, with pole and paddle, till we cameto Forty Mile. Good it was to see white faces once again, so weput into the bank. And that winter was a hard winter. Thedarkness and the cold drew down upon us, and with them the famine.To each man the agent of the Company gave forty pounds of flourand twenty of bacon. There were no beans. And, the dogs howledalways, and there were flat bellies and deep-lined faces, andstrong men became weak, and weak men died. There was also muchscurvy."Then came we together in the store one night, and the emptyshelves made us feel our own emptiness the more. We talked low,by the light of the fire, for the candles had been set aside forthose who might yet gasp in the spring. Discussion was held, andit was said that a man must go forth to the Salt Water and tell tothe world our misery. At this all eyes turned to me, for it wasunderstood that I was a great traveler. 'It is seven hundredmiles,' said I, 'to Haines Mission by the sea, and every inch ofit snowshoe work. Give me the pick of your dogs and the best ofyour grub, and I will go. And with me shall go Passuk.'"To this they were agreed. But there arose one, Long Jeff, aYankee-man, big-boned and big-muscled. Also his talk was big.He, too, was a mighty traveler, he said, born to the snowshoe andbred up on buffalo milk. He would go with me, in case I fell bythe trail, that he might carry the word on to the Mission. I wasyoung, and I knew not Yankee-men. How was I to know that big talkbetokened the streak of fat, or that Yankee-men who did greatthings kept their teeth together? So we took the pick of the dogsand the best of the grub, and struck the trail, we three,--Passuk,Long Jeff, and I."Well, ye have broken virgin snow, labored at the gee-pole, andare not unused to the packed river-jams; so I will talk little ofthe toil, save that on some days we made ten miles, and on othersthirty, but more often ten. And the best of the grub was notgood, while we went on stint from the start. Likewise the pick ofthe dogs was poor, and we were hard put to keep them on theirlegs. At the White River our three sleds became two sleds, and wehad only come two hundred miles. But we lost nothing; the dogsthat left the traces went into the bellies of those that remained."Not a greeting, not a curl of smoke, till we made Pelly. Here Ihad counted on grub; and here I had counted on leaving Long Jeff,who was whining and trail-sore. But the factor's lungs werewheezing, his eyes bright, his cache nigh empty; and he showed usthe empty cache of the missionary, also his grave with the rockspiled high to keep off the dogs. There was a bunch of Indiansthere, but babies and old men there were none, and it was clearthat few would see the spring."So we pulled on, light-stomached and heavy-hearted, with half athousand miles of snow and silence between us and Haines Missionby the sea. The darkness was at its worst, and at midday the suncould not clear the sky-line to the south. But the ice-jams weresmaller, the going better; so I pushed the dogs hard and traveledlate and early. As I said at Forty Mile, every inch of it wassnow-shoe work. And the shoes made great sores on our feet, whichcracked and scabbed but would not heal. And every day these soresgrew more grievous, till in the morning, when we girded on theshoes, Long Jeff cried like a child. I put him at the fore of thelight sled to break trail, but he slipped off the shoes forcomfort. Because of this the trail was not packed, his moccasinsmade great holes, and into these holes the dogs wallowed. Thebones of the dogs were ready to break through their hides, andthis was not good for them. So I spoke hard words to the man, andhe promised, and broke his word. Then I beat him with the dog-whip, and after that the dogs wallowed no more. He was a child,what of the pain and the streak of fat."But Passuk. While the man lay by the fire and wept, she cooked,and in the morning helped lash the sleds, and in the evening tounlash them. And she saved the dogs. Ever was she to the fore,lifting the webbed shoes and making the way easy. Passuk--howshall I say?--I took it for granted that she should do thesethings, and thought no more about it. For my mind was busy withother matters, and besides, I was young in years and knew littleof woman. It was only on looking back that I came to understand."And the man became worthless. The dogs had little strength inthem, but he stole rides on the sled when he lagged behind.Passuk said she would take the one sled, so the man had nothing todo. In the morning I gave him his fair share of grub and startedhim on the trail alone. Then the woman and I broke camp, packedthe sleds, and harnessed the dogs. By midday, when the sun mockedus, we would overtake the man, with the tears frozen on hischeeks, and pass him. In the night we made camp, set aside hisfair share of grub, and spread his furs. Also we made a big fire,that he might see. And hours afterward he would come limping in,and eat his grub with moans and groans, and sleep. He was notsick, this man. He was only trail-sore and tired, and weak withhunger. But Passuk and I were trail-sore and tired, and weak withhunger; and we did all the work and he did none. But he had thestreak of fat of which our brother Bettles has spoken. Further,we gave the man always his fair share of grub."Then one day we met two ghosts journeying through the Silence.They were a man and a boy, and they were white. The ice hadopened on Lake Le Barge, and through it had gone their mainoutfit. One blanket each carried about his shoulders. At nightthey built a fire and crouched over it till morning. They had alittle flour. This they stirred in warm water and drank. The manshowed me eight cups of flour--all they had, and Pelly, strickenwith famine, two hundred miles away. They said, also, that therewas an Indian behind; that they had whacked fair, but that hecould not keep up. I did not believe they had whacked fair, elsewould the Indian have kept up. But I could give them no grub.They strove to steal a dog--the fattest, which was very thin--butI shoved my pistol in their faces and told them begone. And theywent away, like drunken men, through the Silence toward Pelly."I had three dogs now, and one sled, and the dogs were only bonesand hair. When there is little wood, the fire burns low and thecabin grows cold. So with us. With little grub the frost bitessharp, and our faces were black and frozen till our own motherswould not have known us. And our feet were very sore. In themorning, when I hit the trail, I sweated to keep down the cry whenthe 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 frombeneath, and there were many air-holes and cracks, and much openwater. One day we came upon the man, resting, for he had goneahead, as was his wont, in the morning. But between us was openwater. This he had passed around by taking to the rim-ice whereit was too narrow for a sled. So we found an ice-bridge. Passukweighed little, and went first, with a long pole crosswise in herhands in chance she broke through. But she was light, and hershoes large, and she passed over. Then she called the dogs. Butthey had neither poles nor shoes, and they broke through and wereswept 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 aweek's grub, and they were gone."The next morning I divided all the grub, which was little, intothree portions. And I told Long Jeff that he could keep up withus, or not, as he saw fit; for we were going to travel light andfast. But he raised his voice and cried over his sore feet andhis troubles, and said harsh things against comradeship. Passuk'sfeet were sore, and my feet were sore--ay, sorer than his, for wehad worked with the dogs; also, we looked to see. Long Jeff sworehe would die before he hit the trail again; so Passuk took a furrobe, 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 towaste good food on a baby. He is better dead.' I shook my headand said no--that a comrade once was a comrade always. Then shespoke 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 Istill said no, she snatched the pistol from my belt, quick, and asour brother Bettles has spoken, Long Jeff went to the bosom ofAbraham before his time. I chided Passuk for this; but she showedno sorrow, nor was she sorrowful. And in my heart I knew she wasright."Sitka Charley paused and threw pieces of ice into the gold pan onthe stove. The men were silent, and their backs chilled to thesobbing cries of the dogs as they gave tongue to their misery inthe outer cold."And day by day we passed in the snow the sleeping-places of thetwo ghosts--Passuk and I--and we knew we would be glad for suchere we made Salt Water. Then we came to the Indian, like anotherghost, with his face set toward Pelly. They had not whacked upfair, the man and the boy, he said, and he had had no flour forthree days. Each night he boiled pieces of his moccasins in acup, and ate them. He did not have much moccasins left. And hewas a Coast Indian, and told us these things through Passuk, whotalked his tongue. He was a stranger in the Yukon, and he knewnot the way, but his face was set to Pelly. How far was it? Twosleeps? ten? a hundred--he did not know, but he was going toPelly. 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 twominds, like a mother partridge whose young are in trouble. So Iturned to her and said, 'This man has been dealt unfair. Shall Igive him of our grub a portion?' I saw her eyes light, as withquick pleasure; but she looked long at the man and at me, and hermouth drew close and hard, and she said, 'No. The Salt Water isafar off, and Death lies in wait. Better it is that he take thisstranger man and let my man Charley pass.' So the man went awayin the Silence toward Pelly. That night she wept. Never had Iseen her weep before. Nor was it the smoke of the fire, for thewood was dry wood. So I marveled at her sorrow, and thought herwoman's heart had grown soft at the darkness of the trail and thepain."Life is a strange thing. Much have I thought on it, and ponderedlong, yet daily the strangeness of it grows not less, but more.Why this longing for Life? It is a game which no man wins. Tolive is to toil hard, and to suffer sore, till Old Age creepsheavily upon us and we throw down our hands on the cold ashes ofdead fires. It is hard to live. In pain the babe sucks his firstbreath, in pain the old man gasps his last, and all his days arefull of trouble and sorrow; yet he goes down to the open arms ofDeath, stumbling, falling, with head turned backward, fighting tothe last. And Death is kind. It is only Life, and the things ofLife that hurt. Yet we love Life, and we hate Death. It is verystrange."We spoke little, Passuk and I, in the days which came. In thenight we lay in the snow like dead people, and in the morning wewent on our way, walking like dead people. And all things weredead. There were no ptarmigan, no squirrels, no snowshoerabbits,--nothing. The river made no sound beneath its whiterobes. The sap was frozen in the forest. And it became cold, asnow; and in the night the stars drew near and large, and leapedand danced; and in the day the sun-dogs mocked us till we saw manysuns, and all the air flashed and sparkled, and the snow wasdiamond dust. And there was no heat, no sound, only the bittercold and the Silence. As I say, we walked like dead people, as ina dream, and we kept no count of time. Only our faces were set toSalt Water, our souls strained for Salt Water, and our feetcarried us toward Salt Water. We camped by the Tahkeena, and knewit 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. Wefelt 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 shefell more often, and at Caribou Crossing her strength left her.And in the morning we lay beneath the one robe and did not takethe 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 loveof woman. Also, it was eighty miles to Haines Mission, and thegreat Chilcoot, far above the timber-line, reared his storm-swepthead between. But Passuk spoke to me, low, with my ear againsther lips that I might hear. And now, because she need not fear myanger, she spoke her heart, and told me of her love, and of manythings which I did not understand."And she said: 'You are my man, Charley, and I have been a goodwoman to you. And in all the days I have made your fire, andcooked your food, and fed your dogs, and lifted paddle or brokentrail, I have not complained. Nor did I say that there was morewarmth in the lodge of my father, or that there was more grub onthe Chilcat. When you have spoken, I have listened. When youhave 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 lookedupon me, but bought me as a man buys a dog, and took me away, myheart was hard against you and filled with bitterness and fear.But that was long ago. For you were kind to me, Charley, as agood man is kind to his dog. Your heart was cold, and there wasno room for me; yet you dealt me fair and your ways were just.And I was with you when you did bold deeds and led great ventures,and I measured you against the men of other breeds, and I saw youstood among them full of honor, and your word was wise, yourtongue true. And I grew proud of you, till it came that youfilled all my heart, and all my thought was of you. You were asthe midsummer sun, when its golden trail runs in a circle andnever leaves the sky. And whatever way I cast my eyes I beheldthe sun. But your heart was ever cold, Charley, and there was noroom.'"And I said: 'It is so. It was cold, and there was no room. Butthat is past. Now my heart is like the snowfall in the spring,when the sun has come back. There is a great thaw and a bending,a sound of running waters, and a budding and sprouting of greenthings. And there is drumming of partridges, and songs of robins,and great music, for the winter is broken, Passuk, and I havelearned the love of woman.'"She smiled and moved for me to draw her closer. And she said, 'Iam glad.' After that she lay quiet for a long time, breathingsoftly, her head upon my breast. Then she whispered: 'The trailends here, and I am tired. But first I would speak of otherthings. In the long ago, when I was a girl on the Chilcat, Iplayed alone among the skin bales of my father's lodge; for themen were away on the hunt, and the women and boys were dragging inthe meat. It was in the spring, and I was alone. A great brownbear, just awake from his winter's sleep, hungry, his fur hangingto the bones in flaps of leanness, shoved his head within thelodge and said, "Oof!" My brother came running back with thefirst sled of meat. And he fought the bear with burning sticksfrom the fire, and the dogs in their harnesses, with the sledbehind them, fell upon the bear. There was a great battle andmuch noise. They rolled in the fire, the skin bales werescattered, the lodge overthrown. But in the end the bear laydead, with the fingers of my brother in his mouth and the marks ofhis claws upon my brother's face. Did you mark the Indian by thePelly trail, his mitten which had no thumb, his hand which hewarmed by our fire? He was my brother. And I said he should haveno grub. And he went away in the Silence without grub.'"This, my brothers, was the love of Passuk, who died in the snow,by the Caribou Crossing. It was a mighty love, for she denied herbrother for the man who led her away on weary trails to a bitterend. And, further, such was this woman's love, she deniedherself. Ere her eyes closed for the last time she took my handand slipped it under her squirrel-skin parka to her waist. I feltthere a well-filled pouch, and learned the secret of her loststrength. Day by day we had shared fair, to the last least bit;and day by day but half her share had she eaten. The other halfhad gone into the well-filled pouch."And she said: 'This is the end of the trail for Passuk; but yourtrail, Charley, leads on and on, over the great Chilcoot, down toHaines Mission and the sea. And it leads on and on, by the lightof many suns, over unknown lands and strange waters, and it isfull of years and honors and great glories. It leads you to thelodges of many women, and good women, but it will never lead youto a greater love than the love of Passuk.'"And I knew the woman spoke true. But a madness came upon me, andI threw the well-filled pouch from me, and swore that my trail hadreached an end, till her tired eyes grew soft with tears, and shesaid: 'Among men has Sitka Charley walked in honor, and ever hashis word been true. Does he forget that honor now, and talk vainwords by the Caribou Crossing? Does he remember no more the menof Forty Mile, who gave him of their grub the best, of their dogsthe pick? Ever has Passuk been proud of her man. Let him lifthimself up, gird on his snow-shoes, and begone, that she may stillkeep her pride.'"And when she grew cold in my arms I arose, and sought out thewell-filled pouch, and girt on my snowshoes, and staggered alongthe trail; for there was a weakness in my knees, and my head wasdizzy, and in my ears there was a roaring, and a flashing of fireupon my eyes. The forgotten trails of boyhood came back to me. Isat by the full pots of the potlach feast, and raised my voice insong, and danced to the chanting of the men and maidens and thebooming of the walrus drums. And Passuk held my hand and walkedby my side. When I laid down to sleep, she waked me. When Istumbled and fell, she raised me. When I wandered in the deepsnow, she led me back to the trail. And in this wise, like a manbereft of reason, who sees strange visions and whose thoughts arelight with wine, I came to Haines Mission by the sea."Sitka Charley threw back the tent-flaps. It was midday. To thesouth, just clearing the bleak Henderson Divide, poised the cold-disked sun. On either hand the sun-dogs blazed. The air was agossamer of glittering frost. In the foreground, beside thetrail, a wolf-dog, bristling with frost, thrust a long snoutheavenward and mourned.