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Page 70
As a fact, Jan's skepticism was amply justified. In the thirty-five-day
trip thus begun--which should have been completed in sixteen days--Jan
was given as striking an example of the effects of man's muddle-headed,
slack-minded incompetence as that which Jean had furnished him of the
effects of man's able-bodied, clear-headed competence and efficiency.
Jan never worked it out in precisely this way, but after his own simple
and direct fashion he came to the definite conclusion, before he had
been two days on the trail with Beeching and Harry, that, for his part,
he would sooner thole the harshest kind of severity or even cruelty in a
master, so that it be allied with competence, than he would endure this
evils which (in the northland more than in most places) attend all the
steps of the man who is slack, shiftless, and incompetent; and, be it
noted, make miserable the days of all and sundry who are forced to be in
any way dependent on that man.
It was with much wistful regret that Jan recalled in these days the
daily round of his life, after the fight with Bill, as Jean's lead dog.
The swift, positive, and ordered evolutions of those smoothly running
days seemed merely miraculous in retrospect as Jan compared his memory
of them with the wretched muddle of Beeching's wasteful scramble across
the country: They carried no trade goods, nothing save the necessary
dog-food and creature-comforts for the two men; yet their sled--an
extra-large one--was half as heavy again to pull as Jean's had been,
despite the ten primely conditioned dogs who made up Beeching's "flash"
team.
The morning was generally far advanced when Beeching and Harry started
in to clear the muddle of their amateurish night's camp, with all its
preposterous litter of bedding, utensils (always unclean), and other
wasteful truck such as no men can afford to carry in the northland. But
the day would be half done by the time their muddled preparations were
finally completed.
And then, more often than not, one of the men would add his own not
inconsiderable weight to that of the half-packed, overladen sled; and,
at the best, Harry as a trail-breaker and finder was of no more use than
a blind kitten would have been. A dozen times in the day a halt would be
called for some enforced repacking of the jerry-built load on the sled;
and at such times some unpacking would often have to be done to provide
liquor or other refreshment for the men. There were times when, on a
perfect trail, the day's run would be no more than twenty miles; and
there were days of bad trail, when even Jean would have been put to it
to make more than five and twenty miles, and these incompetents, with
their ten-dog team, covered a bare eight or ten miles.
Pride in his leadership was as impossible for Jan in these conditions as
was content or pride in his share of the work for any other member of
the team. But that was not the worst of it. During the first day or two
of the trip Jan was staggered to find that these new masters of his had
no notion of measuring dog-rations, or even of serving these with any
sort of regularity as to time, or portions, or gross quantity. They
would feed some or all the dogs, at any time of day at all, and in any
feckless way that came handy. At their first and second midday halts,
for instance, they flung down to the team, as though to a herd of sheep
or swine, food enough for three days' rations, their own leavings, and
the orthodox dog-ration stuff, in a mixed heap.
Given decent, proper feeding, Jan would have seen to it that order was
preserved and no thieving done. Each dog should have had his own
"whack," and none have been molested. But with all his genuine love of
order and discipline, Jan was no magician. He could not possibly
apportion out a scattered refuse-heap. He had necessarily to grab a
share for himself; and, as was inevitable, the weaker members of the
team went short, or got nothing.
Then--unheard-of profligacy--came another equally casual distribution at
night; and yet another, it might be, in the morning--in the morning,
with the trail before them!
It resolved itself into this: there were no dog-meals on that journey;
but only daily dog-fights--snarling, scrapping, blood and hatred-letting
scrimmages for grub; disgraceful episodes, in themselves sufficient to
shut out any hope of discipline in the team.
The quite inevitable shock came on the evening of the twelfth day. (With
his costly team, Beeching had gaily figured on fifteen days for the
entire trip, in place of the thirty-five days which it actually
occupied.) The only good thing that memorable twelfth day brought was
the end of Beeching's whisky-supply. Incidentally it marked, too, the
end of his easy-going good temper. And to the consternation of an
already thoroughly demoralized team, it brought also the serving out, in
a heap as before--this cruel and messy trick, more perhaps than any
other one thing, marked the men's wretched slackness and incompetence;
qualities generally more cruel in their effects than any harshness or
over-severity--of fish representing in the aggregate rather less than
half a day's ration for each dog in the team.
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