Love of Life | Page 2

off
the injured ankle. Then he proceeded, slowly and carefully, wincing
with pain, to the bank.
He did not stop. With a desperation that was madness, unmindful of the
pain, he hurried up the slope to the crest of the hill over which his
comrade had disappeared - more grotesque and comical by far than that
limping, jerking comrade. But at the crest he saw a shallow valley,
empty of life. He fought with his fear again, overcame it, hitched the
pack still farther over on his left shoulder, and lurched on down the
slope.
The bottom of the valley was soggy with water, which the thick moss
held, spongelike, close to the surface. This water squirted out from
under his feet at every step, and each time he lifted a foot the action
culminated in a sucking sound as the wet moss reluctantly released its
grip. He picked his way from muskeg to muskeg, and followed the

other man's footsteps along and across the rocky ledges which thrust
like islets through the sea of moss.
Though alone, he was not lost. Farther on he knew he would come to
where dead spruce and fir, very small and weazened, bordered the
shore of a little lake, the TITCHIN-NICHILIE, in the tongue of the
country, the "land of little sticks." And into that lake flowed a small
stream, the water of which was not milky. There was rush- grass on that
stream - this he remembered well - but no timber, and he would follow
it till its first trickle ceased at a divide. He would cross this divide to the
first trickle of another stream, flowing to the west, which he would
follow until it emptied into the river Dease, and here he would find a
cache under an upturned canoe and piled over with many rocks. And in
this cache would be ammunition for his empty gun, fish-hooks and
lines, a small net - all the utilities for the killing and snaring of food.
Also, he would find flour, - not much, - a piece of bacon, and some
beans.
Bill would be waiting for him there, and they would paddle away south
down the Dease to the Great Bear Lake. And south across the lake they
would go, ever south, till they gained the Mackenzie. And south, still
south, they would go, while the winter raced vainly after them, and the
ice formed in the eddies, and the days grew chill and crisp, south to
some warm Hudson Bay Company post, where timber grew tall and
generous and there was grub without end.
These were the thoughts of the man as he strove onward. But hard as he
strove with his body, he strove equally hard with his mind, trying to
think that Bill had not deserted him, that Bill would surely wait for him
at the cache. He was compelled to think this thought, or else there
would not be any use to strive, and he would have lain down and died.
And as the dim ball of the sun sank slowly into the northwest he
covered every inch - and many times - of his and Bill's flight south
before the downcoming winter. And he conned the grub of the cache
and the grub of the Hudson Bay Company post over and over again. He
had not eaten for two days; for a far longer time he had not had all he
wanted to eat. Often he stooped and picked pale muskeg berries, put

them into his mouth, and chewed and swallowed them. A muskeg berry
is a bit of seed enclosed in a bit of water. In the mouth the water melts
away and the seed chews sharp and bitter. The man knew there was no
nourishment in the berries, but he chewed them patiently with a hope
greater than knowledge and defying experience.
At nine o'clock he stubbed his toe on a rocky ledge, and from sheer
weariness and weakness staggered and fell. He lay for some time,
without movement, on his side. Then he slipped out of the pack- straps
and clumsily dragged himself into a sitting posture. It was not yet dark,
and in the lingering twilight he groped about among the rocks for
shreds of dry moss. When he had gathered a heap he built a fire, - a
smouldering, smudgy fire, - and put a tin pot of water on to boil.
He unwrapped his pack and the first thing he did was to count his
matches. There were sixty-seven. He counted them three times to make
sure. He divided them into several portions, wrapping them in oil paper,
disposing of one bunch in his empty tobacco pouch, of another bunch
in the inside band of his battered hat, of a third