“If it had not been for him, I’d ’a’ been home now, I’d ’a’ been safe.”
“Can you see a big rock nor’-by-east, Kob?”
“Yes, I see it, not half of a mile away, Garry, hang you!”
“Then we’re running true. Don’t you worry, Kob. I’ll get you to the Fort. I passed you my word, Kob, didn’t I? And have you ever known me go back on it?”
That day passed.
In the night Kob moaned and cursed. Garry said, “He’s ill,” and felt no blame for Kob, nor for himself. He crawled out of his bag and rubbed Kob’s feet for an hour. Once he stopped suddenly; he thought the entrance to the tent darkened, and that John Akkamuk stood there, holding the torn bit of newspaper. He grabbed at it, and it was gone. The intense pain that accompanies snow-blindness was making Garry light-headed. But he took care of Kob just the same. He always had taken care of Kob.
The sixth day came, and Garry fought through it.
The sixth night he had no sleep. He wanted none. He was comforted with visions as with rest. The visions were always of himself and Kob; not the Kob who cursed and cried, but the old comrade Kob; they were washing gold together away back in the Far-alone; or speeding south to spend it, behind the finest team of huskies east of the Slave; or advancing together, shoulder to shoulder, to some unknown victory or unfeared defeat. But always together.
The seventh day Garry began to see this old Kob, pulling beside him on the trace, as he had pulled a thousand times before. The new Kob, in the sledge, cursed him horribly, and threw bits of ice at him to make him go faster. In the night, Garry got up and heated tea for Kob, and softened bits of pork in it, and fed him. Kob complained of pains in the stomach, and Garry wrapped him in some of the blanket-strips he wore in his own larrigans. All the time the vision went on—strange, nameless events, and peopled starry spaces. But always Kob and himself together.
The eighth day, Garry could barely see his own feet. He began to stumble and fall frequently. After one of these falls and slow recoveries, Garry thought the sledge ran light. He turned back to it, felt it over, and it was empty. On hands and knees he felt his way back along their trail; found Kob where he had fallen off in the snow, half delirious; carried him back to the sledge, wrapped him up, and tied him on with a spare trace. Blood was on Garry’s parka; under it, his chest was cut to the bone, where the trace pressed. But after this, he ceased to be conscious of even suffering.