THE TERROR OF THE NORTH
There is no stillness like the stillness of the Arctic. In the frozen wastes of the North the human voice is a blessed and desirable thing. Imagine an ice-locked land, stretching on either hand for thousands of miles, with never a bird’s song to break the silence, where nothing lives but a few starved wolves, and consumptive Indians existing for the most part in fœtid igloos, venturing out but rarely in search of edible roots or an occasional indigenous animal. Ninety per cent. of the human life of Alaska was settled along the Yukon valley, in close proximity to the vast artery that connected with the outer world.
North of that the boundless wilderness stretches away over plain and mountain to the very pole. Traveling is slow and tortuous, for 187 beaten trails are few, and the wanderer must “pack” his own trail where the snow is deep—walking in front of the sled and treading a negotiable sled-track by means of snow-shoes.
The body craves for warmth, and warmth can only be obtained by excessive consumption of food. The normal ration of a healthy being is trebled to counteract the enormous evaporation of bodily heat. Fat is the staff of life. The Esquimo, settled along the coast by the Bering Sea, takes his meal of ten pounds of blubber and feels a better man. By imitative methods the white man survives the awful cold and the pitiless conditions.
To Angela it seemed that every single discomfort to which human life was subject was epitomized in these appalling wastes. The ice was yet new and river trails were unsafe. Day after day they plowed through the deep snow, ever Northward, with the wind in their teeth, and the sun but a mere spectre mounting the horizon, with an effort, to sink again but a few hours later. The dogs frightened her. They were fierce, untamed brutes who snarled at each other and fought on occasion, until the stinging lash 188 descended on their thick coats to remind them of the terrible master behind the sled. She came to see how necessary was the whip. They responded to that and that alone. Some of them were half wolf—creatures that were the result of inter-breeding on the part of Athabaskan Indians. Like their wolf parent their energy was immense. They ate but twice daily—enormous meals of pulped fish and nondescript material which filled two of the sacks on the sled.
They camped on bleak mountains and along frozen creeks. In the latter case Jim made double use of the camp-fire. Before retiring into the snow-banked tent for the night the fire was heaped high with branches. In the morning the thawed ground beneath it was excavated and washed with snow-water, lest it harbor the much desired red mineral.
Muck! Always muck! It seemed to her amazing that he should continue this heartbreaking quest. Much as she had prized the things that money could buy, she began to hate it now. As they penetrated farther North, so the conditions grew more appalling. No longer the sun mounted the horizon. Night and day 189 were much the same thing—a mysterious luminiferousness, merging into the fantastic lights of the great Aurora Borealis, that occasionally leapt across the Northern sky in spectrumatic beauty, to flicker and die, and rise again.
Day after day the journey went on. The ice being now strong, they skimmed across rivers and creeks, raising the snow in clouds and “switchbacking” over hummocks in a fashion that under other conditions might have been exhilarating. Then came the monotonous digging and washing, with its inevitable unsuccessful issue.
Striking the Yukon River at the “flats”—where it is reputed to be thirty miles wide—they followed its course for three weary days, until Fort Yukon was passed and the junction of the Chandalar River was made. It was while negotiating the rough surface of Chandalar that the “terror of the North” came down.
Jim heard it coming before Angela was aware of any unusual sound. For two days there had been no wind, saving a light zephyr that laid its bitter finger on the exposed flesh. Now a legion of devils were preparing for attack. A sound 190 like unto a human sigh broke the silence. It died away and came again, a little stronger. Immediately Jim pulled the “leader” dog to the lift and cracked the long whip over the team.
“Mush, darn you, mush!”
“What’s that?” inquired Angela, as an uncanny groaning met her ears.
“The wind. Gee, but she’s going to raise the dead!”
The high bank loomed up and the sled turned a half-circle and came close under a protecting bluff. Jim tied the team to a tree and ran forward to Angela. She was standing terror-stricken at the sound of the approaching monster. Behind her was a huge snow-drift. He pointed to the white mass, and shouted that his voice might be heard above the Niagara of sound.
“We’ll sure freeze stiff unless we git inside that—hurry!”
They bored their way into the crisp snow, like dogs in a rabbit-hole. There was scarcely need to urge Angela to use her strength. The noise of the approaching blizzard was like to fifty thousand shrieking devils. The little light that remained was suddenly blotted out. At nearly 191 a hundred miles an hour the solid mass of wind and snow came roaring down from the mountains. The whole earth seemed to reel under the impact. Inside the sheltering snow mass it was cold enough, but outside nothing human could live. The dogs, familiar with this phenomenon of the higher latitudes, had crawled into the snow and would lie there until the noise subsided.
The two humans huddled up inside the snow heard nothing and saw nothing. It was as if the whole world had suddenly crashed into a sister planet and was hurtling into space, a broken mass. Hours passed and no change came. Occasionally the snow-drift seemed to shift a little, and Jim dreaded that some clutching finger of the wind would tear the frozen morsel of shelter from the cliff and drive it into thin air. That were indeed the end, for at fifty degrees below zero the Arctic hurricane is like a knife, from whose murderous edge no escape is possible.
They crawled lower in the snow until they reached the ice itself. It was suffocating, for the wind had blown in the entrance and fresh air was excluded.... Jim felt the body close to him—it was still as death. A great fear swept 192 through him. She was not strong enough for this trial—she was——! He thrust his hand inside the thick coat and felt the heart. It was beating but slowly, and her hands were cold. He clasped her to him and rubbed the face with snow, growling like an animal in pain as the hideous uproar continued.
She had nearly fainted; but another hour of this poisonous incarceration and she would never recover. He dare not attempt to get to the fresher air. Outside it was certain death, and any moment might assist the wind in carrying out the task it seemed so determined to perform.... A piercing wind suddenly entered, and the whole mass quivered. He realized that the worst was about to happen—the snow was moving. Before he could fix on his mittens the snow and its two inmates were flung like a rifle-shot across the ice. There was a thundering roar, and the whole pile broke into a myriad parts. Still clasping the unconscious Angela, he went helter-skelter before the blast, pitching and sliding on the ice. The power to think was leaving him. Brain and body seemed numbed and out of action. He was only conscious that he held 193 in his arms the thing from which not even this murderous wind could sever him. He calmly waited for the end—the dreamy, painless end that freezing death would bring....
Then he suddenly gave vent to a choking cry of joy. The wind had suddenly, marvelously vanished. He heard it howling its way across the land to the South. He dragged himself from the ice and looked back. The Aurora was flashing again and the sky was clear. The strange Arctic light was settling down on the scene, turning the snow-clad waste into mysterious colors. He rubbed his frost-bitten hands vigorously with snow and hurried up the river with Angela clasped in his arms.
He found the sled overturned, some distance from where he had left it, and hurriedly rigged up the tent on a suitable place on the bank. In a few minutes he had Angela inside, on a pile of blankets, and was forcing brandy between her lips. Seeing that she was reviving, he lit the oil stove and went to round up the dog-team.
When he returned Angela was boiling the kettle on top of the stove. She handed him a cup of cocoa in silence. He took it without attempting 194 to drink it. Her extraordinary recovery amazed him.
“Is it all over?” she queried ultimately.
“Yep,” he gasped. “But it sure did blow some.”
“Yes—it’s a good job we were inside the snow-drift,” she replied indifferently.
He put down the mug of cocoa that he had taken up. Of all bewildering things this was the most bewildering. She was acting again—acting in her own subtle fashion. He came to the conclusion that women were beyond his comprehension—and Angela most of all.
On the next morning the temperature was moderately high. They left the river and found a good trail along the bank. Angela asked no questions regarding his destination. She had got beyond caring very much now. She determined to adopt an attitude of cold indifference.
The sled was negotiating a bad piece of trail when it suddenly stopped, and she heard an ejaculation from behind her. She saw Jim step down and examine something black in the snow. She gave a little cry as he caught the black object 195 and pulled it up—it was a dead man, frozen as stiff as a board.
“Poor devil!” muttered Jim. “I guess he got caught in that wind.”
He searched through the pockets of the mackinaw coat, but found nothing that would act as a means to identification. He let the body fall and covered it with snow.
“Aren’t you going to bury him?”
He nodded and looked round him in expectant fashion.
“Must have a shack or a tent round about. He’s got no pack of any kind. If it was a tent, likely enough it’s a hundred miles away by now. If it was a shack it’ll be very useful—to us.”
She prayed it might be the latter. Anything was better than this mad wandering.
They found the shack ten minutes later, nestling in a hollow, with its chimney still smoking. They pulled up outside and went to investigate the home of the unfortunate stranger. It was a comfortable affair, containing two rooms and a small outhouse, plus a certain amount of rough furniture. In the corner of the 196 outer room was the ubiquitous Yukon stove, with a fryingpan on the top containing a much overdone “flapjack.” A pair of snow-shoes lay in a corner, and sundry articles of clothing were hanging on nails. In the next room was a camp-bed and more clothes, two bags of flour, one of beans, a few tins of canned meat, a rifle and a hundred cartridges—but no letters or information of any kind respecting its late owner.
“It’ll do,” said Jim. “It’ll be better than a tent, anyway.”
Angela agreed reluctantly. Somehow it seemed heartless to coolly take possession of this place, with its late owner lying dead but a bare mile away. It gave her an uncanny sensation as she glanced at all the little things that belonged to him, that his cold hands had touched but a few hours ago. She reflected that a year ago such an incident as this would have chilled her with horror. But apart from arousing a small amount of sentimentality it affected her now very little. It came as a shock to her to realize that fact—she was becoming as wild as this “cowpuncher” husband of hers, who even now was sallying forth with spade and ax to excavate a shallow grave in the frozen 197 earth, to save a man’s body from prowling wolves. And all without an atom of sentiment!
So little did she know of him! She did not see him remove his cap as he gently placed the luckless man in his last resting-place, or hear the short whispered prayer that he uttered.
The dogs were unharnessed and driven into the outhouse which was to serve as their future domicile. Jim collected the dead man’s belongings together and made a neat pile of them in one corner of the outer room. Angela’s personal things were taken into the more comfortable inner room, which boasted of a match-boarded wall—not to mention half a dozen rather indelicate prints tacked on to the same.
When he had occasion to go into the room again, after Angela had been there, he noticed that the prints had been torn from the walls. Angela was certainly very proper—for a married woman!