|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 47
His flour was running short, and he went back to two biscuits in the
morning and two biscuits at night. Because, of this his weakness
increased and the cold bit in more savagely, and day by day he watched
by the dead trail that would not live for him. At last the scurvy
entered upon its next stage. The skin was unable longer to cast off the
impurity of the blood, and the result was that the body began to swell.
His ankles grew puffy, and the ache in them kept him awake long hours at
night. Next, the swelling jumped to his knees, and the sum of his pain
was more than doubled.
Then there came a cold snap. The temperature went down and down--forty,
fifty, sixty degrees below zero. He had no thermometer, but this he knew
by the signs and natural phenomena understood by all men in that
country--the crackling of water thrown on the snow, the swift sharpness
of the bite of the frost, and the rapidity with which his breath froze
and coated the canvas walls and roof of the tent. Vainly he fought the
cold and strove to maintain his watch on the bank. In his weak condition
he was an easy prey, and the frost sank its teeth deep into him before
he fled away to the tent and crouched by the fire. His nose and cheeks
were frozen and turned black, and his left thumb had frozen inside the
mitten. He concluded that he would escape with the loss of the first
joint.
Then it was, beaten into the tent by the frost, that the trail, with
monstrous irony, suddenly teemed with life. Three sleds went by the
first day, and two the second. Once, during each day, he fought his way
out to the bank only to succumb and retreat, and each of the two times,
within half-an-hour after he retreated, a sled went by.
The cold snap broke, and he was able to remain by the bank once more,
and the trail died again. For a week he crouched and watched, and never
life stirred along it, not a soul passed in or out. He had cut down to
one biscuit night and morning, and somehow he did not seem to notice it.
Sometimes he marvelled at the way life remained in him. He never would
have thought it possible to endure so much.
When the trail fluttered anew with life it was life with which he could
not cope. A detachment of the North-West police went by, a score of
them, with many sleds and dogs; and he cowered down on the bank above,
and they were unaware of the menace of death that lurked in the form of
a dying man beside the trail.
His frozen thumb gave him a great deal of trouble. While watching by the
bank he got into the habit of taking his mitten off and thrusting the
hand inside his shirt so as to rest the thumb in the warmth of his
arm-pit. A mail carrier came over the trail, and Morganson let him pass.
A mail carrier was an important person, and was sure to be missed
immediately.
On the first day after his last flour had gone it snowed. It was always
warm when the snow fell, and he sat out the whole eight hours of
daylight on the bank, without movement, terribly hungry and terribly
patient, for all the world like a monstrous spider waiting for its prey.
But the prey did not come, and he hobbled back to the tent through the
darkness, drank quarts of spruce tea and hot water, and went to bed.
The next morning circumstance eased its grip on him. As he started to
come out of the tent he saw a huge bull-moose crossing the swale some
four hundred yards away. Morganson felt a surge and bound of the blood
in him, and then went unaccountably weak. A nausea overpowered him, and
he was compelled to sit down a moment to recover. Then he reached for
his rifle and took careful aim. The first shot was a hit: he knew it;
but the moose turned and broke for the wooded hillside that came down to
the swale. Morganson pumped bullets wildly among the trees and brush at
the fleeing animal, until it dawned upon him that he was exhausting the
ammunition he needed for the sled-load of life for which he waited.
He stopped shooting, and watched. He noted the direction of the animal's
flight, and, high up on the hillside in an opening among the trees, saw
the trunk of a fallen pine. Continuing the moose's flight in his mind he
saw that it must pass the trunk. He resolved on one more shot, and in
the empty air above the trunk he aimed and steadied his wavering rifle.
The animal sprang into his field of vision, with lifted fore-legs as it
took the leap. He pulled the trigger. With the explosion the moose
seemed to somersault in the air. It crashed down to earth in the snow
beyond and flurried the snow into dust.
Morganson dashed up the hillside--at least he started to dash up. The
next he knew he was coming out of a faint and dragging himself to his
feet. He went up more slowly, pausing from time to time to breathe and
to steady his reeling senses. At last he crawled over the trunk. The
moose lay before him. He sat down heavily upon the carcase and laughed.
He buried his face in his mittened hands and laughed some more.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|