The Son of the Wolf | Page 2

the time water, bad
water. Then you come to great village, plenty people, just the same
mosquitoes next summer. Wigwams oh, so high--ten, twenty pines.

'Hi-yu skookum!' He paused impotently, cast an appealing glance at
Malemute Kid, then laboriously placed the twenty pines, end on end,
by sign language. Malemute Kid smiled with cheery cynicism; but
Ruth's eyes were wide with wonder, and with pleasure; for she half
believed he was joking, and such condescension pleased her poor
woman's heart.
'And then you step into a--a box, and pouf! up you go.' He tossed his
empty cup in the air by way of illustration and, as he deftly caught it,
cried: 'And biff! down you come. Oh, great medicine men! You go Fort
Yukon. I go Arctic City--twenty-five sleep--big string, all the time--I
catch him string--I say, "Hello, Ruth! How are ye?"--and you say, "Is
that my good husband?"--and I say, "Yes"--and you say, "No can bake
good bread, no more soda"--then I say, "Look in cache, under flour;
good-by." You look and catch plenty soda. All the time you Fort Yukon,
me Arctic City. Hi-yu medicine man!' Ruth smiled so ingenuously at
the fairy story that both men burst into laughter. A row among the dogs
cut short the wonders of the Outside, and by the time the snarling
combatants were separated, she had lashed the sleds and all was ready
for the trail.--'Mush! Baldy! Hi! Mush on!' Mason worked his whip
smartly and, as the dogs whined low in the traces, broke out the sled
with the gee pole. Ruth followed with the second team, leaving
Malemute Kid, who had helped her start, to bring up the rear. Strong
man, brute that he was, capable of felling an ox at a blow, he could not
bear to beat the poor animals, but humored them as a dog driver rarely
does--nay, almost wept with them in their misery.
'Come, mush on there, you poor sore-footed brutes!' he murmured, after
several ineffectual attempts to start the load. But his patience was at
last rewarded, and though whimpering with pain, they hastened to join
their fellows.
No more conversation; the toil of the trail will not permit such
extravagance.
And of all deadening labors, that of the Northland trail is the worst.
Happy is the man who can weather a day's travel at the price of silence,
and that on a beaten track. And of all heartbreaking labors, that of

breaking trail is the worst. At every step the great webbed shoe sinks
till the snow is level with the knee. Then up, straight up, the deviation
of a fraction of an inch being a certain precursor of disaster, the
snowshoe must be lifted till the surface is cleared; then forward, down,
and the other foot is raised perpendicularly for the matter of half a yard.
He who tries this for the first time, if haply he avoids bringing his shoes
in dangerous propinquity and measures not his length on the
treacherous footing, will give up exhausted at the end of a hundred
yards; he who can keep out of the way of the dogs for a whole day may
well crawl into his sleeping bag with a clear conscience and a pride
which passeth all understanding; and he who travels twenty sleeps on
the Long Trail is a man whom the gods may envy.
The afternoon wore on, and with the awe, born of the White Silence,
the voiceless travelers bent to their work. Nature has many tricks
wherewith she convinces man of his finity--the ceaseless flow of the
tides, the fury of the storm, the shock of the earthquake, the long roll of
heaven's artillery--but the most tremendous, the most stupefying of all,
is the passive phase of the White Silence. All movement ceases, the sky
clears, the heavens are as brass; the slightest whisper seems sacrilege,
and man becomes timid, affrighted at the sound of his own voice. Sole
speck of life journeying across the ghostly wastes of a dead world, he
trembles at his audacity, realizes that his is a maggot's life, nothing
more.
Strange thoughts arise unsummoned, and the mystery of all things
strives for utterance.
And the fear of death, of God, of the universe, comes over him--the
hope of the Resurrection and the Life, the yearning for immortality, the
vain striving of the imprisoned essence--it is then, if ever, man walks
alone with God.
So wore the day away. The river took a great bend, and Mason headed
his team for the cutoff across the narrow neck of land. But the dogs
balked at the high bank. Again and again, though Ruth and Malemute
Kid were shoving on the sled, they slipped back. Then came the
concerted effort. The miserable creatures, weak from hunger, exerted

their last