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Page 10
Bennett had hoped and had counted upon his men for an average daily
march of sixteen miles, but the winter gales driving down from the
northeast beat them back; the ice and snow that covered the land were no
less uneven than the hummocks of the pack. All game had migrated far to
the southward.
Every day the men grew weaker and weaker; their provisions dwindled.
Again and again one or another of them, worn out beyond human endurance,
would go to sleep while marching and would fall to the ground.
Upon the third day of this overland march one of the dogs suddenly
collapsed upon the ground, exhausted and dying. Bennett had ordered such
of the dogs that gave out cut up and their meat added to the store of
the party's provisions. Ferriss and Muck Tu had started to pick up the
dead dog when the other dogs, famished and savage, sprang upon their
fallen mate. The two men struck and kicked, all to no purpose; the dogs
turned upon them snarling and snapping. They, too, demanded to live;
they, too, wanted to be fed. It was a hideous business. There in that
half-night of the polar circle, lost and forgotten on a primordial
shore, back into the stone age once more, men and animals fought one
another for the privilege of eating a dead dog.
But their life was not all inhuman; Bennett at least could rise even
above humanity, though his men must perforce be dragged so far below it.
At the end of the first week Hawes, the carpenter, died. When they awoke
in the morning he was found motionless and stiff in his sleeping-bag.
Some sort of grave was dug, the poor racked body lowered into it, and
before it was filled with snow and broken ice Bennett, standing quietly
in the midst of the bare-headed group, opened his prayer-book and began
with the tremendous words, "I am the Resurrection and the Life--"
It was the beginning of the end. A week later the actual starvation
began. Slower and slower moved the expedition on its daily march,
faltering, staggering, blinded and buffeted by the incessant northeast
winds, cruel, merciless, keen as knife-blades. Hope long since was dead;
resolve wore thin under friction of disaster; like a rat, hunger gnawed
at them hour after hour; the cold was one unending agony. Still Bennett
was unbroken, still he urged them forward. For so long as they could
move he would drive them on.
Toward four o'clock on the afternoon of one particularly hard day, word
was passed forward to Bennett at the head of the line that something was
wrong in the rear.
"It's Adler; he's down again and can't get up; asks you to leave him."
Bennett halted the line and went back some little distance to find Adler
lying prone upon his back, his eyes half closed, breathing short and
fast. He shook him roughly by the shoulder.
"Up with you!"
Adler opened his eyes and shook his head.
"I--I'm done for this time, sir; just leave me here--please."
"H'up!" shouted Bennett; "you're not done for; I know better."
"Really, sir, I--I _can't_."
"H'up!"
"If you would only please--for God's sake, sir. It's more than I'm made
for."
Bennett kicked him in the side.
"H'up with you!"
Adler struggled to his feet again, Bennett aiding him.
"Now, then, can you go five yards?"
"I think--I don't know--perhaps--"
"Go them, then."
The other moved forward.
"Can you go five more; answer, speak up, can you?"
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