The Trail of 98 (38 page)

"Stop that tune," growled the other. "If you don't know anything else, cut it
out. I'm sick of it."

The little man shut up meekly. Again there was silence, broken by a whining
and a scratching outside. It was the five dogs crying for their supper, crying
for the frozen fish they had earned so well. They wondered why it was not
forthcoming. When they received it they would lie on it, to warm it with the
heat of their bodies, and then gnaw off the thawed portions. They were very
wise, these dogs. But to-night there was no fish, and they whined for it.

"Dog feed all gone?"

"Yep," said the small man.

"Hell! I'll silence these brutes anyway."

He went to the door and laid onto them so that they slunk away into the
shadows. But they did not bury themselves in the snow and sleep. They continued
to prowl round the tent, hunger-mad and desperate.

"We've only got enough grub left for ourselves now," said the big man; "and
none too much at that. I guess I'll put you on half-rations."

He laughed as if it
was the hugest joke. Then rolling himself in a robe, he lay down and slept.

The little man did not sleep. He was still turning over the thought that had
come to him. Outside in the atrocious cold the whining malamutes crept nearer
and nearer. Savage were they, Indian raised and sired by a wolf. And now, in the
agonies of hunger, they cried for fish, and there was none for them, only kicks
and curses. Oh, it was a world of ghastly cruelty! They howled their woes to the
weary moon.

"Short rations, indeed," mumbled the little man. He crawled into his sleeping
bag, but he did not close his eyes. He was watching.

About dawn he rose. An evil dawn it was, sallow, sinister and askew.

The little man selected the heavy-handled whip for the job. Carefully he felt
its butt, then he struck. It was a shrewd blow and a neatly delivered, for the
little man had been in the business before. It fell on the big man's head, and
he crumpled up. Then the little man took some rawhide thongs and trussed up his
victim. There lay the big man, bound and helpless, with a clotted blood-hole in
his black hair.

Then the little man gathered up the rest of the provisions. He looked around
carefully, as if fearful of leaving anything behind. He made a pack of the food
and lashed it on his back. Now he was ready to start. He knew that within fifty
miles, travelling to the south, he would strike a settlement. He was safe.

He turned to where
lay the unconscious body of his partner. Again and again he kicked it; he cursed
it; he spat on it. Then, after a final look of gloating hate, he went off and
left the big man to his fate.

At last, at long last, the Worm had turned.

The dogs! The dogs were closing in. Nearer and nearer they drew, headed by a
fierce Mackenzie River bitch. They wondered why their master did not wake; they
wondered why the little tent was so still; why no plume of smoke rose from the
slim stovepipe. All was oddly quiet and lifeless. No curses greeted them; no
whiplash cut into them; no strong arm jerked them over the harness. Perhaps it
was a primordial instinct that drew them on, that made them strangely bold.
Perhaps it was only the despair of their hunger, the ache of empty bellies.
Closer and closer they crept to the silent tent.

Locasto opened his eyes. Within a foot of his face were the fangs of a
malamute. At his slight movement it drew back with a snarl, and retreated to the
door. Locasto could see the other dogs crouching and eyeing him fixedly. What
could be the matter? What had gotten into the brutes? Where was the Worm? Where
were the provisions? Why was the tent flap open and the stove stone-cold? Then
with a dawning comprehension that he had been deserted, Locasto uttered a curse
and tried to rise.

At first he thought he was stiff with cold, but a downward glance showed him
his condition. He was helpless. He grew sick at the pit of his stomach,
and glared at the dogs.
They were drawing in on him. They seemed to bulk suddenly, to grow huge and
menacing. Their gleaming teeth snapped in his face. He could fancy these teeth
stripping the flesh from his body, gnawing at his bones with drooling jaws.
Violently he shuddered. He must try to free himself, so that at least he could
fight.

Grimly the Worm had done his work, but he had hardly reckoned on the strength
of this man. With a vast throe of fear Locasto tried to free himself. Tenser,
tenser grew the thongs; they strained, they bit into his flesh, but they would
not break. Yet as he relaxed it seemed to him they were less tight. Then he
rested for another effort.

Once again the gaunt, grey bitch was crawling up. He remembered how often he
had starved it, clubbed it until it could barely stand. Now it was going to get
even. It would snap at his throat, rip out his windpipe, bury its fangs in his
bleeding flesh. He cursed it in the old way. With a spring it backed out again
and stood with the others. He made another giant effort. Once again he felt the
thongs strain and strain; then, when he ceased, he imagined they were still
looser.

The dogs seemed to have lost all fear. They stood in a circle within a few
feet of him, regarding him intently. They smelled the blood on his head, and a
slaver ran from their jaws. Again he cursed them, but this time they did not
move. They seemed to realise he could not harm them. With their evilly-slanted
eyes they watched his
struggles. Strange, wise, uncanny brutes, they were biding their time, waiting
to rush in on him, to rend him.

Again he tried to get free. Now he fancied he could move his arm a little. He
must hurry, for every instant the malamutes were growing bolder. Another strain
and a wrench. Ha! he was able to squeeze his right arm from under the
rawhide.

He felt the foul breath of the dogs on his face, and quickly he struck at
them. They jumped back, then, as if at a signal, they sprang in again. There was
no time to lose. They were attacking him in earnest. Quickly he wrenched out his
other arm. He was just in time, for the dogs were upon him.

He struggled to his knees and shielded his head with his arms. Wildly he
swung at the nearest dog. Full on the face he struck it, and it shot back as if
hit by a bullet. But the others were on him. They had him down, snarling and
ripping, a mad ferment of fury. Two of them were making for his face. As he lay
on his back he gripped each by the throat. His hands were torn and bleeding, but
he had them fast. In his grip of steel they struggled to free themselves in
vain. They backed, they writhed, they twisted in a bow. With his huge hands he
was choking them, choking them to death, using them as a shield against the
other three. Then slowly he worked himself into a sitting position. He hurled
one of the dogs to the tent door. He swung bludgeon blows at the others. They
fled yelping and howling. He still held the Mackenzie River bitch. Getting
his knee on her body, he
bent her almost into a circle, bent her till her back broke with a snap.

Then he rose and freed himself from the remaining thongs. He was torn and cut
and bleeding, but he had triumphed.

"Oh, the devil!" he growled, grinding his teeth. "He would have me chewed to
rags by malamutes."

He stared around.

"He's taken everything, the scum! left me to starve. Ha! one thing he's
forgottenthe matches. At least I can keep warm."

He picked up the canister of matches and relit the stove.

"I'll kill him for this," he muttered. "Night and day I'll follow him. I'll
camp on his trail till I find him. ThenI'll torture him; I'll strip him and
leave him naked in the snow."

He slipped into his snowshoes, gave a last look around to see that no food
had been left, and with a final growl of fury he started in pursuit.

Ahead of him, ploughing their way through the virgin snow, he could see the
dragging track of the long snowshoes. He examined it, and noted that it was
sharp and crisp at the edges.

"He's got a good five hours' start of me! Travelling fast, too, by the length
of the track."

He had a thought of capturing the dogs and hitching them up; but, thoroughly
terrified, they had retreated into the woods. To overtake this man, to
glut his lust for revenge,
he must depend on his own strength and endurance.

"Now, Jack Locasto," he told himself grimly, "you've got a fight on your
hands, such a fight as you never had before. Get right down to it."

So, with head bowed and shoulders sloping forward, he darted on the track of
the Worm.

"He's got to break trail, the viper! and that's where I score. I can make
twice the time. Oh, just wait, you little devil! just wait!"

He ground his teeth vindictively, and put an inch more onto his stride. He
was descending a long, open valley that seemed from its trackless snows to have
been immemorially life-shunned and accursed. Black, witch-like pines sentinelled
its flanks, and accentuated its desolation. And over all there was the silence
of the Wild, that double-strong solution of silence from which all other
silences are distilled, and spread out. Yet, as he gazed around him in this
everlasting solitude, there was no fear in his heart.

"I can fight this accursed land and beat it out every time," he exulted. "It
can't get any the better of me."

It was cold, so cold that it was difficult to imagine it could ever be warm
again. To expose flesh was to feel instantly the sharp sting that heralds
frostbite. As he ran, the sharp intake of icy air made his lungs seem to
contract. His eyes smarted and tingled. The lashes froze closely. Ice formed in
his nostrils and his nose began to bleed. He pulled up a moment.

"Curse this infernal
country!"

He had not eaten and the icy air begot a ravenous hunger. He dreamed of food,
but chiefly of bacon, fat, greasy bacon. How glorious it would be just to eat of
it, raw, tallow bacon! He had nothing to eat. He would have nothing till he had
overtaken the Worm. On! On!

He came to where the Worm had made a camp. There were the ashes of a
fire.

"Curse him; he's got some matches after all," he said with bitter chagrin.
Eagerly he searched all around in the snow to see if he could not find even a
crumb of food. There was nothing. He pushed on. Night fell and he was forced to
make camp.

Oh, he was hungry! The night was vastly resplendent, a spendthrift night
scattering everywhere its largess of stars. The cold had a crystalline quality
and the trees detonated strangely in the silence. He built a huge fire: that at
least he could have, and through eighteen hours of darkness he crouched by it,
afraid to sleep for fear of freezing.

"If I only had a tin to boil water in," he muttered; "there's lots of
reindeer moss, and I could stew some of my mucklucks. Ah! I'll try and roast a
bit of them."

He cut a strip from the Indian boots he was wearing, and held it over the
fire. The hair singed away and the corners crisped and charred. He put it in his
mouth. It was pleasantly warm, but even his strong teeth refused to meet in it.
However, he tore it into smaller pieces, and bolted them.

At last the dawn
came, that evil, sneaking, corpse-like dawn, and Locasto flung himself once more
on the trail. He was not feeling so fit now. Hunger and loss of blood had
weakened him so that his stride insensibly shortened, and his step had lost its
spring. However, he plodded on doggedly, an incarnation of vengeance and hate.
Again he examined the snowshoe trail ever stretching in front, and noticed how
crisped and hard was its edge. He was not making the time he had reckoned on.
The Worm must be a long way ahead.

Still he did not despair. The little man might rest a day, or oversleep, or
strain a sinew, then Locasto pictured with gloating joy the terror of the Worm
as he awoke to find himself overtaken. Oh, the snake! the vermin! On! On!

Beyond a doubt he was growing weaker. Once or twice he stumbled, and the last
time he lay a few moments before rising. He wanted to rest badly. The cold was
keener than ever; it was merciless; it was excruciating. He no longer had the
vitality to withstand it. It stabbed and stung him whenever he exposed bare
flesh. He pulled the parka hood very close, so that only his eyes peered out. So
he moved through the desolation of the Arctic Wild, a dark, muffled figure, a
demon of vengeance, fierce and menacing.

He stood on a vast, still plateau. The sky was like a great grotto of ice.
The land lay in a wan apathy of suffering, dumb, hopeless, drear. Icy land and
icy sky met in a trap, a trap that held him fast;
and over all, vast, titanic, terrible, the Spirit of
the Wild seemed to brood. It laughed at him, a laugh of derision, of mockery, of
callous gloating triumph. Locasto shuddered. Then night came and he built
another giant fire.

Again he bolted down some roasted muckluck. Overhead the stars glittered
vindictively. They were green and blue and red, and they had spiny rays like
starfish on which they danced. This night he had to make tremendous efforts to
keep from sleeping. Several times he drowsed forward, and almost fell into the
fire. As he crouched there his beard was singeing and his face scorched, but his
back seemed as if it was cased in ice. Often he would turn and warm it at the
fire, but not for long. He hated to face the terror of the silence and the dark,
the shadow where waited Death. Better the crackling cheer of the spruce
flame.

At dawn the sky was leaden and the cold less despotic. Stretching
interminably ahead was that lonely snowshoe trail. Locasto was puzzled.

"Where in creation is the little devil going to, anyway?" he said, knitting
his brows. "I figured he'd make direct for Dawson, but he's either changed his
mind or got a wrong steer. By Heavens, that's itthe little varmint's lost his
way."

Locasto had an Indian's unerring sense of location.