The White Silence
'Carmen won't last more than a couple of days.' Mason spat out achunk of ice and surveyed the poor animal ruefully, then put herfoot in his mouth and proceeded to bite out the ice whichclustered cruelly between the toes.'I never saw a dog with a highfalutin' name that ever was worth arap,' he said, as he concluded his task and shoved her aside.'They just fade away and die under the responsibility. Did yeever see one go wrong with a sensible name like Cassiar, Siwash,or Husky? No, sir! Take a look at Shookum here, he's--' Snap! Thelean brute flashed up, the white teeth just missing Mason'sthroat.'Ye will, will ye?' A shrewd clout behind the ear with the buttof the dog whip stretched the animal in the snow, quiveringsoftly, a yellow slaver dripping from its fangs.'As I was saying, just look at Shookum here--he's got the spirit.Bet ye he eats Carmen before the week's out.' 'I'll bank anotherproposition against that,' replied Malemute Kid, reversing thefrozen bread placed before the fire to thaw. 'We'll eat Shookumbefore the trip is over. What d'ye say, Ruth?' The Indian womansettled the coffee with a piece of ice, glanced from Malemute Kidto her husband, then at the dogs, but vouchsafed no reply. It wassuch a palpable truism that none was necessary. Two hundred milesof unbroken trail in prospect, with a scant six days' grub forthemselves and none for the dogs, could admit no otheralternative. The two men and the woman grouped about the fire andbegan their meager meal. The dogs lay in their harnesses for itwas a midday halt, and watched each mouthful enviously.'No more lunches after today,' said Malemute Kid. 'And we've gotto keep a close eye on the dogs--they're getting vicious. They'djust as soon pull a fellow down as not, if they get a chance.''And I was president of an Epworth once, and taught in the Sundayschool.' Having irrelevantly delivered himself of this, Masonfell into a dreamy contemplation of his steaming moccasins, butwas aroused by Ruth filling his cup.'Thank God, we've got slathers of tea! I've seen it growing, downin Tennessee. What wouldn't I give for a hot corn pone just now!Never mind, Ruth; you won't starve much longer, nor wearmoccasins either.' The woman threw off her gloom at this, and inher eyes welled up a great love for her white lord--the firstwhite man she had ever seen--the first man whom she had known totreat a woman as something better than a mere animal or beast ofburden.'Yes, Ruth,' continued her husband, having recourse to themacaronic jargon in which it was alone possible for them tounderstand each other; 'wait till we clean up and pull for theOutside. We'll take the White Man's canoe and go to the SaltWater. Yes, bad water, rough water--great mountains dance up anddown all the time. And so big, so far, so far away--you travelten sleep, twenty sleep, forty sleep'--he graphically enumeratedthe days on his fingers--'all the time water, bad water. Then youcome to great village, plenty people, just the same mosquitoesnext summer. Wigwams oh, so high--ten, twenty pines.Hi-yu skookum!' He paused impotently, cast an appealing glance atMalemute Kid, then laboriously placed the twenty pines, end onend, by sign language. Malemute Kid smiled with cheery cynicism;but Ruth's eyes were wide with wonder, and with pleasure; for shehalf believed he was joking, and such condescension pleased herpoor woman's heart.'And then you step into a--a box, and pouf! up you go.' He tossedhis empty cup in the air by way of illustration and, as he deftlycaught it, cried: 'And biff! down you come. Oh, great medicinemen! You go Fort Yukon. I go Arctic City--twenty-five sleep--bigstring, all the time--I catch him string--I say, "Hello, Ruth!How are ye?"--and you say, "Is that my good husband?"--and I say,"Yes"--and you say, "No can bake good bread, no more soda"--thenI say, "Look in cache, under flour; good-by." You look and catchplenty soda. All the time you Fort Yukon, me Arctic City. Hi-yumedicine man!' Ruth smiled so ingenuously at the fairy story thatboth men burst into laughter. A row among the dogs cut short thewonders of the Outside, and by the time the snarling combatantswere separated, she had lashed the sleds and all was ready forthe trail.-- 'Mush! Baldy! Hi! Mush on!' Mason worked his whipsmartly and, as the dogs whined low in the traces, broke out thesled with the gee pole. Ruth followed with the second team,leaving Malemute Kid, who had helped her start, to bring up therear. Strong man, brute that he was, capable of felling an ox ata blow, he could not bear to beat the poor animals, but humoredthem as a dog driver rarely does--nay, almost wept with them intheir misery.'Come, mush on there, you poor sore-footed brutes!' he murmured,after several ineffectual attempts to start the load. But hispatience was at last rewarded, and though whimpering with pain,they hastened to join their fellows.No more conversation; the toil of the trail will not permit suchextravagance.And of all deadening labors, that of the Northland trail is theworst. Happy is the man who can weather a day's travel at theprice of silence, and that on a beaten track. And of allheartbreaking labors, that of breaking trail is the worst. Atevery step the great webbed shoe sinks till the snow is levelwith the knee. Then up, straight up, the deviation of a fractionof an inch being a certain precursor of disaster, the snowshoemust be lifted till the surface is cleared; then forward, down,and the other foot is raised perpendicularly for the matter ofhalf a yard. He who tries this for the first time, if haply heavoids bringing his shoes in dangerous propinquity and measuresnot his length on the treacherous footing, will give up exhaustedat the end of a hundred yards; he who can keep out of the way ofthe dogs for a whole day may well crawl into his sleeping bagwith a clear conscience and a pride which passeth allunderstanding; and he who travels twenty sleeps on the Long Trailis a man whom the gods may envy.The afternoon wore on, and with the awe, born of the WhiteSilence, the voiceless travelers bent to their work. Nature hasmany tricks wherewith she convinces man of his finity--theceaseless flow of the tides, the fury of the storm, the shock ofthe earthquake, the long roll of heaven's artillery--but the mosttremendous, the most stupefying of all, is the passive phase ofthe White Silence. All movement ceases, the sky clears, theheavens are as brass; the slightest whisper seems sacrilege, andman becomes timid, affrighted at the sound of his own voice. Solespeck of life journeying across the ghostly wastes of a deadworld, he trembles at his audacity, realizes that his is amaggot's life, nothing more.Strange thoughts arise unsummoned, and the mystery of all thingsstrives for utterance.And the fear of death, of God, of the universe, comes overhim--the hope of the Resurrection and the Life, the yearning forimmortality, the vain striving of the imprisoned essence--it isthen, if ever, man walks alone with God.So wore the day away. The river took a great bend, and Masonheaded his team for the cutoff across the narrow neck of land.But the dogs balked at the high bank. Again and again, thoughRuth and Malemute Kid were shoving on the sled, they slippedback. Then came the concerted effort. The miserable creatures,weak from hunger, exerted their last strength. Up--up--the sledpoised on the top of the bank; but the leader swung the string ofdogs behind him to the right, fouling Mason's snowshoes. Theresult was grievous.Mason was whipped off his feet; one of the dogs fell in thetraces; and the sled toppled back, dragging everything to thebottom again.Slash! the whip fell among the dogs savagely, especially upon theone which had fallen.'Don't,--Mason,' entreated Malemute Kid; 'the poor devil's on itslast legs. Wait and we'll put my team on.' Mason deliberatelywithheld the whip till the last word had fallen, then out flashedthe long lash, completely curling about the offending creature'sbody.Carmen--for it was Carmen--cowered in the snow, cried piteously,then rolled over on her side.It was a tragic moment, a pitiful incident of the trail--a dyingdog, two comrades in anger.Ruth glanced solicitously from man to man. But Malemute Kidrestrained himself, though there was a world of reproach in hiseyes, and, bending over the dog, cut the traces. No word wasspoken. The teams were doublespanned and the difficulty overcome;the sleds were under way again, the dying dog dragging herselfalong in the rear. As long as an animal can travel, it is notshot, and this last chance is accorded it--the crawling intocamp, if it can, in the hope of a moose being killed.Already penitent for his angry action, but too stubborn to makeamends, Mason toiled on at the head of the cavalcade, littledreaming that danger hovered in the air. The timber clusteredthick in the sheltered bottom, and through this they threadedtheir way. Fifty feet or more from the trail towered a loftypine. For generations it had stood there, and for generationsdestiny had had this one end in view--perhaps the same had beendecreed of Mason.He stooped to fasten the loosened thong of his moccasin. Thesleds came to a halt, and the dogs lay down in the snow without awhimper. The stillness was weird; not a breath rustled thefrost-encrusted forest; the cold and silence of outer space hadchilled the heart and smote the trembling lips of nature. A sighpulsed through the air--they did not seem to actually hear it,but rather felt it, like the premonition of movement in amotionless void. Then the great tree, burdened with its weight ofyears and snow, played its last part in the tragedy of life. Heheard the warning crash and attempted to spring up but, almosterect, caught the blow squarely on the shoulder.The sudden danger, the quick death--how often had Malemute Kidfaced it! The pine needles were still quivering as he gave hiscommands and sprang into action. Nor did the Indian girl faint orraise her voice in idle wailing, as might many of her whitesisters. At his order, she threw her weight on the end of aquickly extemporized handspike, easing the pressure and listeningto her husband's groans, while Malemute Kid attacked the treewith his ax. The steel rang merrily as it bit into the frozentrunk, each stroke being accompanied by a forced, audiblerespiration, the 'Huh!' 'Huh!' of the woodsman.At last the Kid laid the pitiable thing that was once a man inthe snow. But worse than his comrade's pain was the dumb anguishin the woman's face, the blended look of hopeful, hopeless query.Little was said; those of the Northland are early taught thefutility of words and the inestimable value of deeds. With thetemperature at sixty-five below zero, a man cannot lie manyminutes in the snow and live. So the sled lashings were cut, andthe sufferer, rolled in furs, laid on a couch of boughs. Beforehim roared a fire, built of the very wood which wrought themishap. Behind and partially over him was stretched the primitivefly--a piece of canvas, which caught the radiating heat and threwit back and down upon hima trick which men may know who studyphysics at the fount.And men who have shared their bed with death know when the callis sounded. Mason was terribly crushed. The most cursoryexamination revealed it.His right arm, leg, and back were broken; his limbs wereparalyzed from the hips; and the likelihood of internal injurieswas large. An occasional moan was his only sign of life.No hope; nothing to be done. The pitiless night crept slowlyby--Ruth's portion, the despairing stoicism of her race, andMalemute Kid adding new lines to his face of bronze.In fact, Mason suffered least of all, for he spent his time ineastern Tennessee, in the Great Smoky Mountains, living over thescenes of his childhood. And most pathetic was the melody of hislong-forgotten Southern vernacular, as he raved of swimming holesand coon hunts and watermelon raids. It was as Greek to Ruth, butthe Kid understood and felt--felt as only one can feel who hasbeen shut out for years from all that civilization means.Morning brought consciousness to the stricken man, and MalemuteKid bent closer to catch his whispers.'You remember when we foregathered on the Tanana, four years comenext ice run? I didn't care so much for her then. It was morelike she was pretty, and there was a smack of excitement aboutit, I think. But d'ye know, I've come to think a heap of her.She's been a good wife to me, always at my shoulder in the pinch.And when it comes to trading, you know there isn't her equal.D'ye recollect the time she shot the Moosehorn Rapids to pull youand me off that rock, the bullets whipping the water likehailstones?- and the time of the famine at Nuklukyeto?--when sheraced the ice run to bring the news?Yes, she's been a good wife to me, better'n that other one.Didn't know I'd been there?Never told you, eh? Well, I tried it once, down in the States.That's why I'm here. Been raised together, too. I came away togive her a chance for divorce. She got it.'But that's got nothing to do with Ruth. I had thought ofcleaning up and pulling for the Outside next year--her and I--butit's too late. Don't send her back to her people, Kid. It'sbeastly hard for a woman to go back. Think of it!--nearly fouryears on our bacon and beans and flour and dried fruit, and thento go back to her fish and caribou. It's not good for her to havetried our ways, to come to know they're better'n her people's,and then return to them. Take care of her, Kidwhy don't you--butno, you always fought shy of them--and you never told me why youcame to this country. Be kind to her, and send her back to theStates as soon as you can. But fix it so she can comeback--liable to get homesick, you know.'And the youngster--it's drawn us closer, Kid. I only hope it isa boy. Think of it!--flesh of my flesh, Kid. He mustn't stop inthis country. And if it's a girl, why, she can't. Sell my furs;they'll fetch at least five thousand, and I've got as much morewith the company. And handle my interests with yours. I thinkthat bench claim will show up. See that he gets a goodschooling; and Kid, above all, don't let him come back. Thiscountry was not made for white men.'I'm a gone man, Kid. Three or four sleeps at the best. You'vegot to go on. You must go on! Remember, it's my wife, it's myboy--O God! I hope it's a boy! You can't stay by me--and I chargeyou, a dying man, to pull on.''Give me three days,' pleaded Malemute Kid. 'You may change forthe better; something may turn up.''No.''Just three days.''You must pull on.''Two days.''It's my wife and my boy, Kid. You would not ask it.''One day.''No, no! I charge-''Only one day. We can shave it through on the grub, and I mightknock over a moose.''No--all right; one day, but not a minute more. And, Kid,don't--don't leave me to face it alone. Just a shot, one pull onthe trigger. You understand. Think of it! Think of it! Flesh ofmy flesh, and I'll never live to see him!'Send Ruth here. I want to say good-by and tell her that she mustthink of the boy and not wait till I'm dead. She might refuse togo with you if I didn't. Goodby, old man; good-by.'Kid! I say--a--sink a hole above the pup, next to the slide. Ipanned out forty cents on my shovel there.'And, Kid!' He stooped lower to catch the last faint words, thedying man's surrender of his pride. 'I'm sorry--for--youknow--Carmen.' Leaving the girl crying softly over her man,Malemute Kid slipped into his parka and snowshoes, tucked hisrifle under his arm, and crept away into the forest. He was notyro in the stern sorrows of the Northland, but never had hefaced so stiff a problem as this. In the abstract, it was aplain, mathematical propositionthree possible lives as againstone doomed one. But now he hesitated. For five years, shoulder toshoulder, on the rivers and trails, in the camps and mines,facing death by field and flood and famine, had they knitted thebonds of their comradeship. So close was the tie that he hadoften been conscious of a vague jealousy of Ruth, from the firsttime she had come between. And now it must be severed by his ownhand.Though he prayed for a moose, just one moose, all game seemed tohave deserted the land, and nightfall found the exhausted mancrawling into camp, lighthanded, heavyhearted. An uproar from thedogs and shrill cries from Ruth hastened him.Bursting into the camp, he saw the girl in the midst of thesnarling pack, laying about her with an ax. The dogs had brokenthe iron rule of their masters and were rushing the grub.He joined the issue with his rifle reversed, and the hoary gameof natural selection was played out with all the ruthlessness ofits primeval environment. Rifle and ax went up and down, hit ormissed with monotonous regularity; lithe bodies flashed, withwild eyes and dripping fangs; and man and beast fought forsupremacy to the bitterest conclusion. Then the beaten brutescrept to the edge of the firelight, licking their wounds, voicingtheir misery to the stars.The whole stock of dried salmon had been devoured, and perhapsfive pounds of flour remained to tide them over two hundred milesof wilderness. Ruth returned to her husband, while Malemute Kidcut up the warm body of one of the dogs, the skull of which hadbeen crushed by the ax. Every portion was carefully put away,save the hide and offal, which were cast to his fellows of themoment before.Morning brought fresh trouble. The animals were turning on eachother. Carmen, who still clung to her slender thread of life, wasdowned by the pack. The lash fell among them unheeded. Theycringed and cried under the blows, but refused to scatter tillthe last wretched bit had disappeared--bones, hide, hair,everything.Malemute Kid went about his work, listening to Mason, who wasback in Tennessee, delivering tangled discourses and wildexhortations to his brethren of other days.Taking advantage of neighboring pines, he worked rapidly, andRuth watched him make a cache similar to those sometimes used byhunters to preserve their meat from the wolverines and dogs. Oneafter the other, he bent the tops of two small pines toward eachother and nearly to the ground, making them fast with thongs ofmoosehide. Then he beat the dogs into submission and harnessedthem to two of the sleds, loading the same with everything butthe furs which enveloped Mason. These he wrapped and lashedtightly about him, fastening either end of the robes to the bentpines. A single stroke of his hunting knife would release themand send the body high in the air.Ruth had received her husband's last wishes and made nostruggle. Poor girl, she had learned the lesson of obediencewell. From a child, she had bowed, and seen all women bow, to thelords of creation, and it did not seem in the nature of thingsfor woman to resist. The Kid permitted her one outburst of grief,as she kissed her husband--her own people had no suchcustom--then led her to the foremost sled and helped her into hersnowshoes. Blindly, instinctively, she took the gee pole andwhip, and 'mushed' the dogs out on the trail. Then he returned toMason, who had fallen into a coma, and long after she was out ofsight crouched by the fire, waiting, hoping, praying for hiscomrade to die.It is not pleasant to be alone with painful thoughts in the WhiteSilence. The silence of gloom is merciful, shrouding one as withprotection and breathing a thousand intangible sympathies; butthe bright White Silence, clear and cold, under steely skies, ispitiless.An hour passed--two hours--but the man would not die. At highnoon the sun, without raising its rim above the southern horizon,threw a suggestion of fire athwart the heavens, then quickly drewit back. Malemute Kid roused and dragged himself to his comrade'sside. He cast one glance about him. The White Silence seemed tosneer, and a great fear came upon him. There was a sharp report;Mason swung into his aerial sepulcher, and Malemute Kid lashedthe dogs into a wild gallop as he fled across the snow.
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