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Page 72
That was one astounding proof of his tenderfoot's luck. But more
remarkable evidence of it was found, by those who understood, in his
memorable journey to salt water.
By all the rules of the game, men said, Beeching and his hanger-on
should have been starved, frozen, and eaten by their outraged dogs a
week or more before the end of their trip. And failing that, some
old-timers pointed out, they should have been publicly lynched on
arrival at salt water.
Instead, they fell into the hands of roughly good-natured men, who not
only gave them food and drink and helped them down to the wharf, but
actually set them up with a traveling-kit of new clothing.
Then, again, consider the really astounding fact that a steamer should
have been waiting to cast off at the moment these two men arrived, and
that her skipper held his ship up for half an hour to suit the
convenience of the precious pair, and finally carried them on in his
best two cabins!
"But what about the sled and the team?" whined Harry, as he and Beeching
hobbled up the gangway of the waiting steamer, bound for luxury and
civilization. It may be Harry had thought of these as one of his
hard-earned perquisites.
"Oh, to blazes with the sled and dogs!" cried _Chechaquo_ Beeching. "The
town's welcome to 'em, for all I care."
Generous man! And at that precise moment, his tough life starved and
hammered out of his hardy body, the exhausted Fish was breathing his
last--still in the traces; and Jan, in whom the fires of life, though
better laid than those of ninety-nine dogs in a hundred, were burning
very low just now--barely flickering, indeed--was concentrating such
energies as remained in him upon gnawing feebly at his traces, for the
double purpose of extracting some nutriment from them, if that might be,
and freeing himself from their control.
The first of these aims was a tolerably hopeless one, since Jan could
not just now swallow any hard thing. But in the second he achieved
success, just as the steamer's gangway was hauled up and the population
of the town was engaged in waving farewell to the craft that connected
with the big outside world, where sentimentality and dollars rule, just
as in the northland muscle, grit, endurance--and dollars rule. Yes, even
there money does play one of the chief ruling parts. But, as a general
thing, sentimentality does not.
The remaining wrecks of the team, two dead, one dying, and three too far
gone in the same direction to be capable of any effort, lay where they
had fallen at the moment when willing hands had come to help their
masters to the steamer.
It may be that Jan had bigger physical reserves to draw upon than his
mates had. It is more likely, however, that the powers which kept him
striving still to live, after the others had given up effort, were
factors on the mental side of his composition. His memories were
stronger and more vivid, his imagination a thing far more complex, than
that of any husky. Also his faith in men and his desire for their help
and companionship--even after five weeks with Beeching and Harry--were
greatly stronger than the same factors were in any of his team-mates.
The culminative influences of hundreds of generations of civilization
spoke in him here.
And so, trailing beside him the gnawed-off ends of his traces, Jan
dragged his emaciated frame along in jerks over the hard-trodden snow
while the folk of the town cheered the departing steamer. In a little
while Jan came to a small tent, the flap of which hung loose and open.
At the entrance Jan smelt the fresh trail of a man; from within came--to
nostrils cunning as Jan's--the odor of foodstuffs. Jan propped and
jerked himself feebly into the tent, though for months now he had known
that it was forbidden to enter the habitations of men-folk.
Nosing weakly to and fro, Jan found on a low shelf a can of milk. A
half-blind jab of his muzzle brought it tumbling to the ground. Its lid
was open, but the milk was firmly frozen. Jan licked at it, cutting his
deep flews as he did so on the uneven edges of the tin. The warmth of
his tongue extracted a certain sweet milkiness from this. But the metal
edges were raw and sharp; Jan's exhaustion was very great, and presently
he sank down upon the twig-strewn ground, and lay there, breathing in
weak, sobbingly uncertain gasps, the milk-can between his outstretched
paws.
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