Where the Trail Forks

by Jack London

　　And you, my love, stay here?"--Schwabian Folk-song.The singer, clean-faced and cheery-eyed, bent over and added waterto a pot of simmering beans, and then, rising, a stick of firewoodin hand, drove back the circling dogs from the grub-box andcooking-gear. He was blue of eye, and his long hair was golden,and it was a pleasure to look upon his lusty freshness. A newmoon was thrusting a dim horn above the white line of close-packedsnow-capped pines which ringed the camp and segregated it from allthe world. Overhead, so clear it was and cold, the stars dancedwith quick, pulsating movements. To the southeast an evanescentgreenish glow heralded the opening revels of the aurora borealis.Two men, in the immediate foreground, lay upon the bearskin whichwas their bed. Between the skin and naked snow was a six-inchlayer of pine boughs. The blankets were rolled back. Forshelter, there was a fly at their backs,--a sheet of canvasstretched between two trees and angling at forty-five degrees.This caught the radiating heat from the fire and flung it downupon the skin. Another man sat on a sled, drawn close to theblaze, mending moccasins. To the right, a heap of frozen graveland a rude windlass denoted where they toiled each day in dismalgroping for the pay-streak. To the left, four pairs of snowshoesstood erect, showing the mode of travel which obtained when thestamped snow of the camp was left behind.That Schwabian folk-song sounded strangely pathetic under the coldnorthern stars, and did not do the men good who lounged about thefire after the toil of the day. It put a dull ache into theirhearts, and a yearning which was akin to belly-hunger, and senttheir souls questing southward across the divides to the sun-lands."For the love of God, Sigmund, shut up!" expostulated one of themen. His hands were clenched painfully, but he hid them fromsight in the folds of the bearskin upon which he lay."And what for, Dave Wertz?" Sigmund demanded. "Why shall I notsing when the heart is glad?""Because you've got no call to, that's why. Look about you, man,and think of the grub we've been defiling our bodies with for thelast twelvemonth, and the way we've lived and worked like beasts!"Thus abjured, Sigmund, the golden-haired, surveyed it all, and thefrost-rimmed wolf-dogs and the vapor breaths of the men. "And whyshall not the heart be glad?" he laughed. "It is good; it is allgood. As for the grub--" He doubled up his arm and caressed theswelling biceps. "And if we have lived and worked like beasts,have we not been paid like kings? Twenty dollars to the pan thestreak is running, and we know it to be eight feet thick. It isanother Klondike--and we know it--Jim Hawes there, by your elbow,knows it and complains not. And there's Hitchcock! He sewsmoccasins like an old woman, and waits against the time. Only youcan't wait and work until the wash-up in the spring. Then weshall all be rich, rich as kings, only you cannot wait. You wantto go back to the States. So do I, and I was born there, but Ican wait, when each day the gold in the pan shows up yellow asbutter in the churning. But you want your good time, and, like achild, you cry for it now. Bah! Why shall I not sing:"In a year, in a year, when the grapes are ripe,

　　I shall stay no more away.

　　Then if you still are true, my love,

　　It will be our wedding day.

　　In a year, in a year, when my time is past,

　　Then I'll live in your love for aye.

　　Then if you still are true, my love,

　　It will be our wedding day."The dogs, bristling and growling, drew in closer to the firelight.There was a monotonous crunch-crunch of webbed shoes, and betweeneach crunch the dragging forward of the heel of the shoe like thesound of sifting sugar. Sigmund broke off from his song to hurloaths and firewood at the animals. Then the light was parted by afur-clad figure, and an Indian girl slipped out of the webs, threwback the hood of her squirrel-skin parka, and stood in theirmidst. Sigmund and the men on the bearskin greeted her as"Sipsu," with the customary "Hello," but Hitchcock made room onthe sled that she might sit beside him."And how goes it, Sipsu?" he asked, talking, after her fashion, inbroken English and bastard Chinook. "Is the hunger still mightyin the camp? and has the witch doctor yet found the causewherefore game is scarce and no moose in the land?""Yes; even so. There is little game, and we prepare to eat thedogs. Also has the witch doctor found the cause of all this evil,and to-morrow will he make sacrifice and cleanse the camp.""And what does the sacrifice chance to be?--a new-born babe orsome poor devil of a squaw, old and shaky, who is a care to thetribe and better out of the way?""It chanced not that wise; for the need was great, and he chosenone other than the chief's daughter; none other than I, Sipsu.""Hell!" The word rose slowly to Hitchcock's lips, and brimmedover full and deep, in a way which bespoke wonder andconsideration."Wherefore we stand by a forking of the trail, you and I," shewent on calmly, "and I have come that we may look once more uponeach other, and once more only."She was born of primitive stock, and primitive had been hertraditions and her days; so she regarded life stoically, and humansacrifice as part of the natural order. The powers which ruledthe day-light and the dark, the flood and the frost, the burstingof the bud and the withering of the leaf, were angry and in needof propitiation. This they exacted in many ways,--death in thebad water, through the treacherous ice-crust, by the grip of thegrizzly, or a wasting sickness which fell upon a man in his ownlodge till he coughed, and the life of his lungs went out throughhis mouth and nostrils. Likewise did the powers receivesacrifice. It was all one. And the witch doctor was versed inthe thoughts of the powers and chose unerringly. It was verynatural. Death came by many ways, yet was it all one after all,--a manifestation of the all-powerful and inscrutable.But Hitchcock came of a later world-breed. His traditions wereless concrete and without reverence, and he said, "Not so, Sipsu.You are young, and yet in the full joy of life. The witch doctoris a fool, and his choice is evil. This thing shall not be."She smiled and answered, "Life is not kind, and for many reasons.First, it made of us twain the one white and the other red, whichis bad. Then it crossed our trails, and now it parts them again;and we can do nothing. Once before, when the gods were angry, didyour brothers come to the camp. They were three, big men andwhite, and they said the thing shall not be. But they diedquickly, and the thing was."Hitchcock nodded that he heard, half-turned, and lifted his voice."Look here, you fellows! There's a lot of foolery going on overto the camp, and they're getting ready to murder Sipsu. What d'yesay?"Wertz looked at Hawes, and Hawes looked back, but neither spoke.Sigmund dropped his head, and petted the shepherd dog between hisknees. He had brought Shep in with him from the outside, andthought a great deal of the animal. In fact, a certain girl, whowas much in his thoughts, and whose picture in the little locketon his breast often inspired him to sing, had given him the dogand her blessing when they kissed good-by and he started on hisNorthland quest."What d'ye say?" Hitchcock repeated."Mebbe it's not so serious," Hawes answered with deliberation."Most likely it's only a girl's story.""That isn't the point!" Hitchcock felt a hot flush of anger sweepover him at their evident reluctance. "The question is, if it isso, are we going to stand it? What are we going to do?""I don't see any call to interfere," spoke up Wertz. "If it isso, it is so, and that's all there is about it. It's a way thesepeople have of doing. It's their religion, and it's no concern ofours. Our concern is to get the dust and then get out of thisGod-forsaken land. 'T isn't fit for naught else but beasts? Andwhat are these black devils but beasts? Besides, it'd be damnpoor policy.""That's what I say," chimed in Hawes. "Here we are, four of us,three hundred miles from the Yukon or a white face. And what canwe do against half-a-hundred Indians? If we quarrel with them, wehave to vamose; if we fight, we are wiped out. Further, we'vestruck pay, and, by God! I, for one, am going to stick by it!""Ditto here," supplemented Wertz.Hitchcock turned impatiently to Sigmund, who was softly singing, -"In a year, in a year, when the grapes are ripe,

　　I shall stay no more away.""Well, it's this way, Hitchcock," he finally said, "I'm in thesame boat with the rest. If three-score bucks have made up theirmind to kill the girl, why, we can't help it. One rush, and we'dbe wiped off the landscape. And what good'd that be? They'dstill have the girl. There's no use in going against the customsof a people except you're in force.""But we are in force!" Hitchcock broke in. "Four whites are amatch for a hundred times as many reds. And think of the girl!"Sigmund stroked the dog meditatively. "But I do think of thegirl. And her eyes are blue like summer skies, and laughing likesummer seas, and her hair is yellow, like mine, and braided inropes the size of a big man's arms. She's waiting for me, outthere, in a better land. And she's waited long, and now my pile'sin sight I'm not going to throw it away.""And shamed I would be to look into the girl's blue eyes andremember the black ones of the girl whose blood was on my hands,"Hitchcock sneered; for he was born to honor and championship, andto do the thing for the thing's sake, nor stop to weigh ormeasure.Sigmund shook his head. "You can't make me mad, Hitchcock, nor domad things because of your madness. It's a cold businessproposition and a question of facts. I didn't come to thiscountry for my health, and, further, it's impossible for us toraise a hand. If it is so, it is too bad for the girl, that'sall. It's a way of her people, and it just happens we're on thespot this one time. They've done the same for a thousand-thousandyears, and they're going to do it now, and they'll go on doing itfor all time to come. Besides, they're not our kind. Nor's thegirl. No, I take my stand with Wertz and Hawes, and--"But the dogs snarled and drew in, and he broke off, listening tothe crunch-crunch of many snowshoes. Indian after Indian stalkedinto the firelight, tall and grim, fur-clad and silent, theirshadows dancing grotesquely on the snow. One, the witch doctor,spoke gutturally to Sipsu. His face was daubed with savage paintblotches, and over his shoulders was drawn a wolfskin, thegleaming teeth and cruel snout surmounting his head. No otherword was spoken. The prospectors held the peace. Sipsu arose andslipped into her snowshoes."Good-by, O my man," she said to Hitchcock. But the man who hadsat beside her on the sled gave no sign, nor lifted his head asthey filed away into the white forest.Unlike many men, his faculty of adaptation, while large, had neversuggested the expediency of an alliance with the women of theNorthland. His broad cosmopolitanism had never impelled towardcovenanting in marriage with the daughters of the soil. If ithad, his philosophy of life would not have stood between. But itsimply had not. Sipsu? He had pleasured in camp-fire chats withher, not as a man who knew himself to be man and she woman, but asa man might with a child, and as a man of his make certainly wouldif for no other reason than to vary the tedium of a bleakexistence. That was all. But there was a certain chivalricthrill of warm blood in him, despite his Yankee ancestry and NewEngland upbringing, and he was so made that the commercial aspectof life often seemed meaningless and bore contradiction to hisdeeper impulses.So he sat silent, with head bowed forward, an organic force,greater than himself, as great as his race, at work within him.Wertz and Hawes looked askance at him from time to time, a faintbut perceptible trepidation in their manner. Sigmund also feltthis. Hitchcock was strong, and his strength had been impressedupon them in the course of many an event in their precarious life.So they stood in a certain definite awe and curiosity as to whathis conduct would be when he moved to action.But his silence was long, and the fire nigh out, when Wertzstretched his arms and yawned, and thought he'd go to bed. ThenHitchcock stood up his full height."May God damn your souls to the deepest hells, you chicken-heartedcowards! I'm done with you!" He said it calmly enough, but hisstrength spoke in every syllable, and every intonation wasadvertisement of intention. "Come on," he continued, "whack up,and in whatever way suits you best. I own a quarter-interest inthe claims; our contracts show that. There're twenty-five orthirty ounces in the sack from the test pans. Fetch out thescales. We'll divide that now. And you, Sigmund, measure me myquarter-share of the grub and set it apart. Four of the dogs aremine, and I want four more. I'll trade you my share in the campoutfit and mining-gear for the dogs. And I'll throw in my six orseven ounces and the spare 45-90 with the ammunition. What d'yesay?"The three men drew apart and conferred. When they returned,Sigmund acted as spokesman. "We'll whack up fair with you,Hitchcock. In everything you'll get your quarter-share, neithermore nor less; and you can take it or leave it. But we want thedogs as bad as you do, so you get four, and that's all. If youdon't want to take your share of the outfit and gear, why, that'syour lookout. If you want it, you can have it; if you don't,leave it.""The letter of the law," Hitchcock sneered. "But go ahead. I'mwilling. And hurry up. I can't get out of this camp and awayfrom its vermin any too quick."The division was effected without further comment. He lashed hismeagre belongings upon one of the sleds, rounded in his four dogs,and harnessed up. His portion of outfit and gear he did nottouch, though he threw onto the sled half a dozen dog harnesses,and challenged them with his eyes to interfere. But they shruggedtheir shoulders and watched him disappear in the forest.A man crawled upon his belly through the snow. On every handloomed the moose-hide lodges of the camp. Here and there amiserable dog howled or snarled abuse upon his neighbor. Once,one of them approached the creeping man, but the man becamemotionless. The dog came closer and sniffed, and came yet closer,till its nose touched the strange object which had not been therewhen darkness fell. Then Hitchcock, for it was Hitchcock,upreared suddenly, shooting an unmittened hand out to the brute'sshaggy throat. And the dog knew its death in that clutch, andwhen the man moved on, was left broken-necked under the stars. Inthis manner Hitchcock made the chief's lodge. For long he lay inthe snow without, listening to the voices of the occupants andstriving to locate Sipsu. Evidently there were many in the tent,and from the sounds they were in high excitement. At last heheard the girl's voice, and crawled around so that only the moose-hide divided them. Then burrowing in the snow, he slowly wormedhis head and shoulders underneath. When the warm inner air smotehis face, he stopped and waited, his legs and the greater part ofhis body still on the outside. He could see nothing, nor did hedare lift his head. On one side of him was a skin bale. He couldsmell it, though he carefully felt to be certain. On the otherside his face barely touched a furry garment which he knew clotheda body. This must be Sipsu. Though he wished she would speakagain, he resolved to risk it.He could hear the chief and the witch doctor talking high, and ina far corner some hungry child whimpering to sleep. Squirmingover on his side, he carefully raised his head, still justtouching the furry garment. He listened to the breathing. It wasa woman's breathing; he would chance it.He pressed against her side softly but firmly, and felt her startat the contact. Again he waited, till a questioning hand slippeddown upon his head and paused among the curls. The next instantthe hand turned his face gently upward, and he was gazing intoSipsu's eyes.She was quite collected. Changing her position casually, shethrew an elbow well over on the skin bale, rested her body uponit, and arranged her parka. In this way he was completelyconcealed. Then, and still most casually, she reclined acrosshim, so that he could breathe between her arm and breast, and whenshe lowered her head her ear pressed lightly against his lips."When the time suits, go thou," he whispered, "out of the lodgeand across the snow, down the wind to the bunch of jackpine in thecurve of the creek. There wilt thou find my dogs and my sled,packed for the trail. This night we go down to the Yukon; andsince we go fast, lay thou hands upon what dogs come nigh thee, bythe scruff of the neck, and drag them to the sled in the curve ofthe creek."Sipsu shook her head in dissent; but her eyes glistened withgladness, and she was proud that this man had shown toward hersuch favor. But she, like the women of all her race, was born toobey the will masculine, and when Hitchcock repeated "Go!" he didit with authority, and though she made no answer he knew that hiswill was law."And never mind harness for the dogs," he added, preparing to go."I shall wait. But waste no time. The day chaseth the nightalway, nor does it linger for man's pleasure."Half an hour later, stamping his feet and swinging his arms by thesled, he saw her coming, a surly dog in either hand. At theapproach of these his own animals waxed truculent, and he favoredthem with the butt of his whip till they quieted. He hadapproached the camp up the wind, and sound was the thing to bemost feared in making his presence known."Put them into the sled," he ordered when she had got the harnesson the two dogs. "I want my leaders to the fore."But when she had done this, the displaced animals pitched upon thealiens. Though Hitchcock plunged among them with clubbed rifle, ariot of sound went up and across the sleeping camp."Now we shall have dogs, and in plenty," he remarked grimly,slipping an axe from the sled lashings. "Do thou harnesswhichever I fling thee, and betweenwhiles protect the team."He stepped a space in advance and waited between two pines. Thedogs of the camp were disturbing the night with their jangle, andhe watched for their coming. A dark spot, growing rapidly, tookform upon the dim white expanse of snow. It was a forerunner ofthe pack, leaping cleanly, and, after the wolf fashion, singingdirection to its brothers. Hitchcock stood in the shadow. As itsprang past, he reached out, gripped its forelegs in mid-career,and sent it whirling earthward. Then he struck it a well-judgedblow beneath the ear, and flung it to Sipsu. And while sheclapped on the harness, he, with his axe, held the passage betweenthe trees, till a shaggy flood of white teeth and glistening eyessurged and crested just beyond reach. Sipsu worked rapidly. Whenshe had finished, he leaped forward, seized and stunned a second,and flung it to her. This he repeated thrice again, and when thesled team stood snarling in a string of ten, he called, "Enough!"But at this instant a young buck, the forerunner of the tribe, andswift of limb, wading through the dogs and cuffing right and left,attempted the passage. The butt of Hitchcock's rifle drove him tohis knees, whence he toppled over sideways. The witch doctor,running lustily, saw the blow fall.Hitchcock called to Sipsu to pull out. At her shrill "Chook!" themaddened brutes shot straight ahead, and the sled, boundingmightily, just missed unseating her. The powers were evidentlyangry with the witch doctor, for at this moment they plunged himupon the trail. The lead-dog fouled his snowshoes and tripped himup, and the nine succeeding dogs trod him under foot and the sledbumped over him. But he was quick to his feet, and the nightmight have turned out differently had not Sipsu struck backwardwith the long dog-whip and smitten him a blinding blow across theeyes. Hitchcock, hurrying to overtake her, collided against himas he swayed with pain in the middle of the trail. Thus it was,when this primitive theologian got back to the chief's lodge, thathis wisdom had been increased in so far as concerns the efficacyof the white man's fist. So, when he orated then and there in thecouncil, he was wroth against all white men."Tumble out, you loafers! Tumble out! Grub'll be ready beforeyou get into your footgear!"Dave Wertz threw off the bearskin, sat up, and yawned.Hawes stretched, discovered a lame muscle in his arm, and rubbedit sleepily. "Wonder where Hitchcock bunked last night?" hequeried, reaching for his moccasins. They were stiff, and hewalked gingerly in his socks to the fire to thaw them out. "It'sa blessing he's gone," he added, "though he was a mighty goodworker.""Yep. Too masterful. That was his trouble. Too bad for Sipsu.Think he cared for her much?""Don't think so. Just principle. That's all. He thought itwasn't right--and, of course, it wasn't,--but that was no reasonfor us to interfere and get hustled over the divide before ourtime.""Principle is principle, and it's good in its place, but it's bestleft to home when you go to Alaska. Eh?" Wertz had joined hismate, and both were working pliability into their frozenmoccasins. "Think we ought to have taken a hand?"Sigmund shook his head. He was very busy. A scud of chocolate-colored foam was rising in the coffee-pot, and the bacon neededturning. Also, he was thinking about the girl with laughing eyeslike summer seas, and he was humming softly.His mates chuckled to each other and ceased talking. Though itwas past seven, daybreak was still three hours distant. Theaurora borealis had passed out of the sky, and the camp was anoasis of light in the midst of deep darkness. And in this lightthe forms of the three men were sharply defined. Emboldened bythe silence, Sigmund raised his voice and opened the last stanzaof the old song:-"In a year, in a year, when the grapes are ripe--"Then the night was split with a rattling volley of rifle-shots.Hawes sighed, made an effort to straighten himself, and collapsed.Wertz went over on an elbow with drooping head. He choked alittle, and a dark stream flowed from his mouth. And Sigmund, theGolden-Haired, his throat a-gurgle with the song, threw up hisarms and pitched across the fire.The witch doctor's eyes were well blackened, and his temper noneof the best; for he quarrelled with the chief over the possessionof Wertz's rifle, and took more than his share of the part-sack ofbeans. Also he appropriated the bearskin, and caused grumblingamong the tribesmen. And finally, he tried to kill Sigmund's dog,which the girl had given him, but the dog ran away, while he fellinto the shaft and dislocated his shoulder on the bucket. Whenthe camp was well looted they went back to their own lodges, andthere was a great rejoicing among the women. Further, a band ofmoose strayed over the south divide and fell before the hunters,so the witch doctor attained yet greater honor, and the peoplewhispered among themselves that he spoke in council with the gods.But later, when all were gone, the shepherd dog crept back to thedeserted camp, and all the night long and a day it wailed thedead. After that it disappeared, though the years were not manybefore the Indian hunters noted a change in the breed of timberwolves, and there were dashes of bright color and variegatedmarkings such as no wolf bore before.